Silas Marner is not the book to read if you feel the George Eliot box needs to be checked (and it should be!). One of those cases of educators choosing the wrong book from a great author for the school circuit. Probably made quite a few readers dislike her. I'm a huge fan of GE, but this story often feels pedestrian. Not that they'd appreciate seeing the longer Middlemarch on the shelves but it def would've made a few more diehard fans out of those sticking with it.
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What are you reading? (July 2015)
- Thread starter Maklershed
- Start date
It's that good huh! (I know you've read some of the others.)
Interesting. I've read Middlemarch (fab) and The Mill on the Floss (didn't like it as much) but yeah, Silas Marner is the one my English teacher told me to read back when I was thinking of studying English at University.
Not many, actually. Just The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and Madame Bovary.
Middlemarch is 900+ pages. Gonna read that next year. From your list I reckon Madame Bovary might be a good one to chalk off my own personal List.
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Alright, I'm starting a fellow gaffer's Book: Aidan Moher - Tide of Shadows and Other Stories
Heart of Darkness might be a good one for you to read.
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Alright, I'm starting a fellow gaffer's Book: Aidan Moher - Tide of Shadows and Other Stories
Heart of Darkness might be a good one for you to read.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
Okhere are a few: Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment; Joseph Conrad - Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness; George Eliot - Silas Marner; Flaubert - Madame Bovary; Hermann Hesse - The Glass Bead Game, Steppenwolf; Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire; John Steinbeck - East of Eden, Tortilla Flat; Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth; Emile Zola - Truth
But I have more if none of those take your fancy.
Of these, I have and have not read Lord Jim, Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game.
I could try to pick up Pale Fire tomorrow if you're really keen on that one though. (Only have Lolita here)
I have actually been told that before. I even went so far as to get it out of the library, but I didn't find the motivation to start it and ended up returning it. I'll get to it eventually!
It may be me.. but I find the story predictable and the moral too easy - it's easy to write a school report on (and therefore an understandable choice), but I think most of her signature qualities are lacking and replaced with sentimentality. That unparallelled insight into the personal struggles, the mind's workings, meeting society's mechanisms isn't really shown here.
The Mill on the Floss to me was painfully accurate in painting the conflicting emotions of family relationships. Maggie is a beautiful creation and her journey with her brother hit me hard.
Middlemarch remains the favorite. When a book leaves you gobsmacked by the intelligence of an author, and yet more than anything an emotional wreck, you know you've got a special mix.
Do note that there is some racism in the book if seen from an African Perspective.* Even if it does show the hypocrisy of the European colonialism [according to some people].
edit:* of course through modern lenses too, but I meant that most people would take that for granted seeing when the book was published.
I know I didn't give Mill on the Floss a fair chance when I was reading it, it seemed like one of those 'life is shit and then you die' stories, which can make me really impatient and ungenerous. I wish I would have time to re-read it, but probably I'll just have to chalk it up as a wasted opportunity.
Which would you prefer? I really want to read all of them, so I don't mind. The advantage of reading Pale Fire would be that it's (I think) probably the most difficult of them, so having a co-reader would be the most beneficial. But maybe you don't want to read a really difficult book on your holiday!
Read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn last week. Holy shit. I've never been so tense reading as I was during the first half of that novel.
Now thinking of starting Bujold's Vorkosigan series, starting with The Warrior's Apprentice(?).
Eeep!
Ted Sunday
Neo Member
currently 60 pages into this and am really digging it. I hope the other half is just as strong.
After this i'll move onto the epic
Is this a reread or a first time thing? For some reason I assume you've read every science fiction-y thing over five years old.
After this i'll move onto the epic
woo
How did you like that?
You can read the Heart of Darkness in one sitting, unlike the painfully dull and slow Nostromo. That was so bad I quit about a third way through. Now that I think about it, I did the same with The Secret Agent back in HS days.
Hey, Cyan. Are you going to set a good example as one of our moderator mascots by participating in this month's book club?
Pandora012
Member
His Dark Materials
I just finished The Woman in the Dunes and thought it was fucking brilliant. Now I'm reading Spring Snow and greatly enjoying it. I've only read a short story by Mishima and seen the Paul Schrader film (which is one of my favorites), so I'm glad to see that the man's writing lives up to the intrigue surrounding him as a person. Devastatingly beautiful writer.
I'll just mark you down as a maybe, then.
Don't be like that. Make that no turn an 180 to become a yes!
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
No copies of A Little Life available via the CPL.
I'd probably hate it, anyway.
I'd probably hate it, anyway.
arglebargle
Member
Ok
But I have more if none of those take your fancy.
I have read a handful of these and of what ive read I would suggest pale fire.
All I know is that I hate that cover. I don't ever think of slapping/punching people based on facial expressions, but that dude is bringing me around. Since it's customary for people to post images of the books they read I've seen some clunkers(looking at you Dresden Files), but this is an active repellant.
whatevermort
Member
Which way round did you get it? (I got old Italy first, and cannot imagine reading it any other way.)
currently 60 pages into this and am really digging it. I hope the other half is just as strong.
whatevermort
Member
dr3upmushroom
Banned
Enjoying this memoir of a rather dark tale.
I'm a bit into A Little Life and I've spent half my time just highlighting passages. What a wonderful book. I'm in love with the characters, and I haven't even gotten to Jude's history, which I've seen only as glimpses intimated by the way his friends care for him, the careful distancing maintained by their regard for his privacy. This is turning out to be something quite special.
I also bought Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, but I don't think I'll be able to get to it anytime soon.
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Also read some other stuff this week:
Noggin / Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley - very good, although Noggin has this totally TEEN MOVIE moment that really took me out of it. It's YA, and it's good YA! I guess all those Printz and National Book Award (finalist) tags weren't just for show after all. Coming off Ember in Whatever (I got only a little into it - I bailed out when the solemn narration informed me that a tribe of seafaring people were called the Mariners, evoking the dystopianYA twitter account except that it was horrifyingly real, and published, and successful) it was nice to be reminded that sturgeon's law applies here too, albeit with some caveats like removing a zero off the 10% mark.
I guess what I like so much about these books is that they're young adult novels targeted at young adults that's not afraid to acknowledge loss. Like not just your dying lover boyfriend/girlfriend croaking near the end to give you the feeeelz, but loss of a more ordinary sort, where just living is enough to send you careening into places you are not ready for, because living is to always be in that state of unreadiness, of being caught by surprise, and the surprises are rarely perfectly happy. It's loss as a grind, whether it's the rigors of living in a town that has locked down your career choices via zip code alone, or the dislocation of losing five years and seeing the people you love move forward and leave you behind, and the revelations that you stumble across once you catch up. It feels real, I guess; the YA industry as a whole seems set on selling fantasies not to teens but to adults who cannot move past nostalgia, so it's good to see something that does. I dunno, I feel like I could express this with the kind of eloquence I could never muster if I had access to more gifs.
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City of Stairs - Didn't get far into it but I liked what I read of it, and Shara is turning out to be quite likable as a protag. Thought the title was dumb, but it fit well once you were introduced to the city of, well, stairs itself. Bulikov is an interesting place and I like it as this physical manifestation of a state in transition, where the very environment is frozen in flux between the past and the new.
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Also read a bit more of My Struggle. Sardines on toast, how horrifying.
I also bought Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, but I don't think I'll be able to get to it anytime soon.
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Also read some other stuff this week:
Noggin / Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley - very good, although Noggin has this totally TEEN MOVIE moment that really took me out of it. It's YA, and it's good YA! I guess all those Printz and National Book Award (finalist) tags weren't just for show after all. Coming off Ember in Whatever (I got only a little into it - I bailed out when the solemn narration informed me that a tribe of seafaring people were called the Mariners, evoking the dystopianYA twitter account except that it was horrifyingly real, and published, and successful) it was nice to be reminded that sturgeon's law applies here too, albeit with some caveats like removing a zero off the 10% mark.
I guess what I like so much about these books is that they're young adult novels targeted at young adults that's not afraid to acknowledge loss. Like not just your dying lover boyfriend/girlfriend croaking near the end to give you the feeeelz, but loss of a more ordinary sort, where just living is enough to send you careening into places you are not ready for, because living is to always be in that state of unreadiness, of being caught by surprise, and the surprises are rarely perfectly happy. It's loss as a grind, whether it's the rigors of living in a town that has locked down your career choices via zip code alone, or the dislocation of losing five years and seeing the people you love move forward and leave you behind, and the revelations that you stumble across once you catch up. It feels real, I guess; the YA industry as a whole seems set on selling fantasies not to teens but to adults who cannot move past nostalgia, so it's good to see something that does. I dunno, I feel like I could express this with the kind of eloquence I could never muster if I had access to more gifs.
---
City of Stairs - Didn't get far into it but I liked what I read of it, and Shara is turning out to be quite likable as a protag. Thought the title was dumb, but it fit well once you were introduced to the city of, well, stairs itself. Bulikov is an interesting place and I like it as this physical manifestation of a state in transition, where the very environment is frozen in flux between the past and the new.
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Also read a bit more of My Struggle. Sardines on toast, how horrifying.
Ted Sunday
Neo Member
I got George/Georgia's story first in my copy.
Eduardboon
Member
Have finished "the long utopia" by terry pratchet and Stephen Baxter yesterday. Really good read!
Am just starting on Proxima.
Am just starting on Proxima.
Moved on to this, and I'm already much more interested:
Elfstones is a much superior novel to Sword. Curious to see what you think of it.
40 pages in and it's much more interesting and better-paced so far. I'm glad I read Sword to get familiar with the characters, but this already feels like it's going to be a much more focused, streamlined, and enjoyable ride.
So weird for me to read this. It's been a while since I read BNW, but I recall thinking that 1984 was a far more substantial and enjoyable read. I remember BNW being bogged down in science-speak. Maybe I need to go back. I read it in my mid-twenties. 34 now.
So that's Pale Fire = 2, Everything Else = 0. Hm.
The author had to fight to have that cover, as an accurate representation of the content of the book, to give people a bit of advance warning. Before I read it, that cover made me wince whenever I looked at it. After, it's just... totally right.
Reading a few different things, depending on the mood.
I picked this up today. I like Snyder's work on Batman, excited to see what he does here.
I started reading 11/22/63 again. I don't know if anyone else does this, but it's so good I almost don't want to read it right now. You ever just know a book is going to be good so you want to save it for some opportune reading situation? Or you just don't want to start it because then you know at some point it will be over?
I'm actually pretty impressed with how good the Injustice books have been. Kinda fun to see superheroes toss their principles out the window and do as they please.
Also reading the new Wright brother's bio by David McCullough. A fascinating family to be sure.
I picked this up today. I like Snyder's work on Batman, excited to see what he does here.
I started reading 11/22/63 again. I don't know if anyone else does this, but it's so good I almost don't want to read it right now. You ever just know a book is going to be good so you want to save it for some opportune reading situation? Or you just don't want to start it because then you know at some point it will be over?
I'm actually pretty impressed with how good the Injustice books have been. Kinda fun to see superheroes toss their principles out the window and do as they please.
Also reading the new Wright brother's bio by David McCullough. A fascinating family to be sure.
I just started reading again after a couple of years (10 or so) of keeping myself away from books.
Im reading through River of London by Ben Aaronovitch. The picture being book number four.
Really good urban fantasy and police procedural.
Heres what the publisher has to say about the first book in the series which is called Midnight Riot in US and Rivers of London in EU.
Im reading through River of London by Ben Aaronovitch. The picture being book number four.
Really good urban fantasy and police procedural.
Heres what the publisher has to say about the first book in the series which is called Midnight Riot in US and Rivers of London in EU.
Nappuccino
Member
I think I've asked you this before, but honestly I cannot remember. How essential is reading that poem before digging into the book proper? I've tried reading the book before but I never got very far.
You mean a douche that was acting out a toddler's expression moments before breaking into sobs, she had to fight for that? I wonder why.
Personally, I go with Dostoevsky. Do you know how Pale Fire is constructed? I don't read poetry, so I haven't bothered, but Lolita is about as aesthetically beautiful as writing gets in the English language. It's somehow effortlessly exquisite. Humbert Humbert makes Hannibal Lecter seem like a troglodyte.
I read it straight through (e.g. table of contents -> foreword -> poem -> comments -> index), but it's possible to read it in many different ways, and you'll get a different experience of the novel depending on how you choose to read it. I read an analysis of the novel where the author of that book read it in a way where he would jump back and forth from poem to commentary / index as necessary, and just follow the rabbit hole, which I could see just from his descriptions of what you find out by doing that was a completely different experience from mine.
So, it's up to you; you can always read it a different way next time. But I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the poem is not part of the book proper. It's all of a piece, actually.
No, she had to fight for it because it's a picture of a man in the middle of orgasm. "It's obvious he's cumming!", is what her editor argued, as she recounts it.
Of course, the ambiguity of the photo - that it's easy to misread without context of knowing that it is a famous Peter Hujar photo of a man in orgasm - is sort of the point. It's something that can only make sense in retrospect as appropriate for the book, though.
Oh man you ruined it for me.
For the longest time I thought it was some guy going through the heaviest shit as he leans on his hand that's holding onto a shot glass (I don't know why my mind edited in the shot glass).
But now it's porn, and ruined.
And I am also ruined.
Yes, yes. I'm terrible for ruining the mystique. Or it would have been ruined when you looked at the photo credit on the book jacket.
Where are you on ze log?
Well, I can see what you're trying to get out of it.
And that means you are close to A Little Life and Vorkosigan Saga. ^________________^
I recall my librarian recommending it to me.
An uniquely powerful anti-religious modern take on Science Fiction fairytales.
A real good book.
Even if one of my more lively atheist friends bought it for their child to read even before the child could learn to read.
Ron Mexico
Member
Just wanted to pile on here about Book of Numbers. About 30% through and just...painstaking to trudge through. Trying to reason with myself to just let it go and move on.
I think it's even worse for I just finished Catch-22 prior.
Liked the first, loved the second, hated the full-on pedantry of the third book that was a philosophical treatise and atheist circle jerk more than a story. Pullman can fuck off with that one. And I say that as an atheist.