What are you reading at the moment?

Barry Giddens said:
I'm glad to be one among many philistines then William. Is Moby Dick still commonly required reading in the US? I think it has pretty much disappeared from UK syllabuses. Although I couldn't say for sure.
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Not sure if it's still required reading. Back in the late 80's my son had to read it in his Honors English class and I think he thought it was okay at the time. Neither her nor there, Nick likes just likes books and when on to get a PHD in Greek Literature.

In 2011 Nathaniel Philbrick, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in history, wrote a book titled Why Read Moby-Dick and refers to Moby Dick as an American bible. Don't know anybody who finished that book either.
Digimonkey said:
Ha ha - for 'American Bible' - we could also read it as the "great American Novel?' A category of literature I've always had a problem with. Nothing to do with the authors' nationality - I would point out - more the style. There are great American novels - just great novels really? Kerouac changed my life - literally - with 'On the Road,' - 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,' by Tom Wolfe also. John Irving worked for me too. I've read 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' more times than any other book. None of these books - for example - to my mind - are bloated. They crackle with radical, vibrant ideas - concisely delivered. I can't stomach Hemingway or Norman Mailer by the same token. Joseph Heller - 'Catch 22,' was a work of genius but it kind of tails off after that for me. Gore Vidal - a bit too clever for everybody elses good? I'm probably going to get my head in my hands for expressing these opinions - but there are only the three of us reading this? You wonder - with the 'Great American novel,' whether the authors felt the pull to fill up the massive continent they were the inheritors of - the blank spaces - not blank to the locals granted - with words? Inventing a continental sized culture anew - from their European inheritance - which they weren't that keen to acknowledge? Just my thoughts. Each to their own.



Ancient or modern Greek? Each - equally impressive - I'm just interested.

Yours - I.

@Barry Giddens
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Agreed. Style over substance in many instances. Thought Catch 22 was clever as hell but never could bring myself to finish it. Was once at a World Federalist dinner where the guest speaker, Heller, read a passage from Catch 22, immediately after the meal, that describes in graphic detail the part when one of the heroes was shoot in the stomach and his flight jacket was opened, revealing his exposed guts. Several women leaped out of their seats and raced to the toilet rooms, hurling their roasted chicken as they fled. I thought it was funny but my friends scolded me for missing Heller's anti-war message.

Don't know if you have ever read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole? It was published by Walker Percy 11 years after Toole's suicide and became somewhat of a cult classic. This is a funny book that got the dead author a Pulitzer.

Nick's undergraduate degree was in Linguistics and wrote his final paper on something about the history of Indo-European languages. For some reason he decided to change fields and went on to studied Classics, writing his dissertation on wit combat in Greek Literature: a sure ticket to a fabulous fast-track career at Goldman Sachs. He now teaches Classics and German at a small Mid-Western college.
 
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An interesting discussion gents. I have always thought that the Great American Novel debate is similar to the Death of the Novel debate. The average reader, me for instance, doesn't really consider such things. But I suppose English departments at Universities need to justify their existence, and literary supplements need to fill column inches.

I have always liked that line about Hemingway not being able to write unless he was sitting in front of a mirror. Like you Iain, I could never stomach either Hemingway or Mailer. So much macho posturing. And I somehow managed to neglect Updike and Roth. The counter culture writers mentioned by Iain did not have the same impact on me. But I did go through a Charles Bukowski period, and I would put Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five' amongst my all time favourite novels. I have read everything Cormac McCarthy has written, and I adore the short stories of John Carver. Dennis Johnson is a bit of a hero of mine. Actually, I have no idea where I'm going with this chaps. I just seem to be listing American writers that I admire. But I suppose my thinking is that there is no such thing as the Great American Novel, but there are, echoing Iain, great American novels.

How do we feel about 'The Great Gatsby'?

@Digimonkey
@William Dobson
 
Barry Giddens said:
An interesting discussion gents. I have always thought that the Great American Novel debate is similar to the Death of the Novel debate. The average reader, me for instance, doesn't really consider such things. But I suppose English departments at Universities need to justify their existence, and literary supplements need to fill column inches.

I have always liked that line about Hemingway not being able to write unless he was sitting in front of a mirror. Like you Iain, I could never stomach either Hemingway or Mailer. So much macho posturing. And I somehow managed to neglect Updike and Roth. The counter culture writers mentioned by Iain did not have the same impact on me. But I did go through a Charles Bukowski period, and I would put Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five' amongst my all time favourite novels. I have read everything Cormac McCarthy has written, and I adore the short stories of John Carver. Dennis Johnson is a bit of a hero of mine. Actually, I have no idea where I'm going with this chaps. I just seem to be listing American writers that I admire. But I suppose my thinking is that there is no such thing as the Great American Novel, but there are, echoing Iain, great American novels.

How do we feel about 'The Great Gatsby'?

@Digimonkey
@William Dobson
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That line about Hemingway's inability to write without sitting in front of a mirror is a great one. Funny. 'The Great Gatsby' is also required reading in a lot of English programs. Fifty years ago I was somewhat fascinated by the life style of the rich and famous and consumed all of Fitzgerald's books. I was a shallow youth who thought I was cool wearing tweed sports jackets, Bass Weegon loafers, tooling around Philadelphia in 53 MG TD and pretending to be a character out of a Fitzgerald novel. What an idiot! So, it is safe to say this kind of delusional behavior unfortunately never lead to any real critical analysis of 'The Great Gatsby'.
 
William Dobson said:
That line about Hemingway's inability to write without sitting in front of a mirror is a great one. Funny. 'The Great Gatsby' is also required reading in a lot of English programs. Fifty years ago I was somewhat fascinated by the life style of the rich and famous and consumed all of Fitzgerald's books. I was a shallow youth who thought I was cool wearing tweed sports jackets, Bass Weegon loafers, tooling around Philadelphia in 53 MG TD and pretending to be a character out of a Fitzgerald novel. What an idiot! So, it is safe to say this kind of delusional behavior unfortunately never lead to any real critical analysis of 'The Great Gatsby'.
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That's quite some look William! I'm sure you pulled it off. I'm not sure that I could have on the damp streets of north London. How about on the even damper streets of Glasgow @Digimonkey?
 
Barry Giddens said:
An interesting discussion gents. I have always thought that the Great American Novel debate is similar to the Death of the Novel debate. The average reader, me for instance, doesn't really consider such things. But I suppose English departments at Universities need to justify their existence, and literary supplements need to fill column inches.

I have always liked that line about Hemingway not being able to write unless he was sitting in front of a mirror. Like you Iain, I could never stomach either Hemingway or Mailer. So much macho posturing. And I somehow managed to neglect Updike and Roth. The counter culture writers mentioned by Iain did not have the same impact on me. But I did go through a Charles Bukowski period, and I would put Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five' amongst my all time favourite novels. I have read everything Cormac McCarthy has written, and I adore the short stories of John Carver. Dennis Johnson is a bit of a hero of mine. Actually, I have no idea where I'm going with this chaps. I just seem to be listing American writers that I admire. But I suppose my thinking is that there is no such thing as the Great American Novel, but there are, echoing Iain, great American novels.

How do we feel about 'The Great Gatsby'?

@Digimonkey
@William Dobson
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Can easily see how 'Slaughterhouse Five' is your favorite book.
 
Barry Giddens said:
That's quite some look William! I'm sure you pulled it off. I'm not sure that I could have on the damp streets of north London. How about on the even damper streets of Glasgow @Digimonkey?
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Looking back, my guess is I looked more like the tall, goofy four-eyed dweeb that I actually was. The only thing that has changed is, because of a cataract operation and the benefits of Zeiss lens, bullies can no longer call me four eyes.

Thank you for your compliment.
 
William Dobson said:
Looking back, my guess is I looked more like the tall, goofy four-eyed dweeb that I actually was. The only thing that has changed is, because of a cataract operation and the benefits of Zeiss lens, bullies can no longer call me four eyes.

Thank you for your compliment.
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I'm sure we can all look back on some of our ‘styles' and cringe. Sometimes, if one of my sisters pulls out one of the old photo albums, I think ‘what on earth was going on in my head? And what the bloody hell was going on with my hair?' But it's good to be able to laugh at yourself. Too many people take themselves far too seriously.
 
William Dobson said:
I was a shallow youth who thought I was cool wearing tweed sports jackets, Bass Weegon loafers, tooling around Philadelphia in 53 MG TD and pretending to be a character out of a Fitzgerald novel.
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I'm with Barry - that sounds pretty cool to me. Particularly the car - in an ideal world only an E Type Jaguar could have been cooler or - my first choice would have been a Shelby Cobra. The classic muscle car. I've read the 'Great Gatsby,' but many years ago. I remember the prose was as shiny and polished as one of the cuff links of the titular character. I think I read it during the counter-culture binge I had at the time - as previously mentioned - so I really didn't give a toss about the world described and the anxieties associated with it. Was the book referential to William Randolph Hearst - or was that just Citizen Kane? Rosebud.

I'm very impressed William with your son's academic choices. Easy for me to say - I wasn't his father with an anxious eye towards his financial future. I only went onto tertiary education at the age of 40 and had definitely decided that I would study for the love of it only - subjects that I was genuinely interested in - not for any assumed career advancement. Which is just as well - knowing about late antique and medieval history, early Christian and Islamic theology hasn't served any practical purpose in my life since. All the better for it though. People should be able to learn just for the sake of it? It doesn't have to be directly vocational? I fancied linguistics for a while as a direction to pursue - but I soon realised that the discipline quickly descends - ironically - into something that resembles mathematics. Which my brain can't cope with. The history of Indo-European languages and their diffusion - with associated technologies - is something I have read a lot about. Almost half of the world speaks a dialect derived from the root language that split east and west from - best guess - the Caspian steppe around 4000 bce. The old models suggested spread by conquest - but that is largely discredited these days - it seems more likely that it was a process of assimilation as the language brought - at the time - revolutionary technologies with it. Domesticated horses and the wheel - farming perhaps or perhaps not - domesticated live stock probably - well not a wheel singular - it is generally understood that the wheel had been already in use by potters - but two wheels - with an axle in between - that was truly revolutionary. It's like inventing the telephone - one phone rubbish - two phones - that changed the world for ever. Europe these days is almost completely dominated by derived Indo-European languages - the singular example in opposition is where you are. Basque. It's a language isolate - it is not connected to any other language spoken today. Not for the want of trying, nobody can work out its origin. My best guess would be that it is the only surviving pre Neolithic language in Europe - so maybe Mesolithic or upper Paleolithic - I'd support this with the ideas that the words for axe, knife and hoe are derived from the root that means stone in Basque. Also the Basques then - and now are famously ill disposed to outsiders - even the Romans gave them a wide berth. So fact fans - would anybody like to guess what the only commonly used loan word in English comes from Basque? Yours - I.

@Barry Giddens
 
Digimonkey said:
I'm with Barry - that sounds pretty cool to me. Particularly the car - in an ideal world only an E Type Jaguar could have been cooler or - my first choice would have been a Shelby Cobra. The classic muscle car. I've read the 'Great Gatsby,' but many years ago. I remember the prose was as shiny and polished as one of the cuff links of the titular character. I think I read it during the counter-culture binge I had at the time - as previously mentioned - so I really didn't give a toss about the world described and the anxieties associated with it. Was the book referential to William Randolph Hearst - or was that just Citizen Kane? Rosebud.

I'm very impressed William with your son's academic choices. Easy for me to say - I wasn't his father with an anxious eye towards his financial future. I only went onto tertiary education at the age of 40 and had definitely decided that I would study for the love of it only - subjects that I was genuinely interested in - not for any assumed career advancement. Which is just as well - knowing about late antique and medieval history, early Christian and Islamic theology hasn't served any practical purpose in my life since. All the better for it though. People should be able to learn just for the sake of it? It doesn't have to be directly vocational? I fancied linguistics for a while as a direction to pursue - but I soon realised that the discipline quickly descends - ironically - into something that resembles mathematics. Which my brain can't cope with. The history of Indo-European languages and their diffusion - with associated technologies - is something I have read a lot about. Almost half of the world speaks a dialect derived from the root language that split east and west from - best guess - the Caspian steppe around 4000 bce. The old models suggested spread by conquest - but that is largely discredited these days - it seems more likely that it was a process of assimilation as the language brought - at the time - revolutionary technologies with it. Domesticated horses and the wheel - farming perhaps or perhaps not - domesticated live stock probably - well not a wheel singular - it is generally understood that the wheel had been already in use by potters - but two wheels - with an axle in between - that was truly revolutionary. It's like inventing the telephone - one phone rubbish - two phones - that changed the world for ever. Europe these days is almost completely dominated by derived Indo-European languages - the singular example in opposition is where you are. Basque. It's a language isolate - it is not connected to any other language spoken today. Not for the want of trying, nobody can work out its origin. My best guess would be that it is the only surviving pre Neolithic language in Europe - so maybe Mesolithic or upper Paleolithic - I'd support this with the ideas that the words for axe, knife and hoe are derived from the root that means stone in Basque. Also the Basques then - and now are famously ill disposed to outsiders - even the Romans gave them a wide berth. So fact fans - would anybody like to guess what the only commonly used loan word in English comes from Basque? Yours - I.

@Barry Giddens
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Fascinating read and so eloquently written may I add.

Thanks for sharing @Digimonkey
 
Light bit of festive reading with JRR Tolkien's Letters From Father Christmas and for a change of pace Soccer Men by Simon Kuper, basically a collection of commentaries on players and managers.

On a sidenote, I have read Moby Dick cover to cover, nice to knock it off the Booket List but isn't something I would fancy reading again, rather dense and at times disinteresting. I had the same feelings with Crime and Punishment, they are both held up as masterpieces but I just didn't click with either. Each to their own I suppose. Unlike MD I did warm to CP towards the end of the novel.
 
nolisco said:
Light bit of festive reading with JRR Tolkien's Letters From Father Christmas and for a change of pace Soccer Men by Simon Kuper, basically a collection of commentaries on players and managers.

On a sidenote, I have read Moby Dick cover to cover, nice to knock it off the Booket List but isn't something I would fancy reading again, rather dense and at times disinteresting. I had the same feelings with Crime and Punishment, they are both held up as masterpieces but I just didn't click with either. Each to their own I suppose. Unlike MD I did warm to CP towards the end of the novel.
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‘Football Against The Enemy', also by Kuper, is an interesting read @nolisco. As you probably know, Kuper is Dutch, and his examination of the post-war football rivalry between The Netherlands and Germany is fascinating.
 
Hmmmmm......I was thinking maybe xenophobia after what you said about their mistrust of outsiders. And I knew about the fishing off the American coast. I was trying to think of a fish with an x in its name. Is it a commonly used word?
 
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