Hux
-
Posts
653 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Books
Posts posted by Hux
-
-
9 hours ago, Hayley said:
This sounds excellent. I wonder whether your last paragraph should be in spoiler quotes though? Or does knowing that not really matter in terms of the rest of the plot?
I don't think it matters.
I think this whole thread should probably have spoiler alerts though. I rarely think about what I'm saying regarding each specific book because I read so few that are plot driven. This was a slight change in my usual tastes.
I can add (spoilers) into the thread title if you want.
-
-
My Friends (1924) Emanuel Bove
This is everything I love in literature. A first person narration with short chapters, and a self-pitying introspective character who fails to recognise his own limitations but sees them, bright and vibrant, in everyone else. And best of all, a book where the sadness resonates with one's own personal experiences. With that in mind, I think it helps to be a man when reading this.
Victor Baton is a poor man, a veteran of the First World War with wounds to show for it. He tells us of his experiences with five people (his potential friends, you might say) and details how each encounter began and ended. He lives in a dank hotel and dreams of finding love and friendship. He is full of bitterness and self-pity but also manages to possess a delusional sense of superiority regarding his own traits and worth. He is, for want of a better term, a socially anxious incel who believes that he is owed something from the world. He wanders the streets, hoping to make friends, but then betrays these friendships without ever acknowledging his guilt or complicity in their destruction. He makes a friend in Henri Billard, for example, but immediately tries to persuade Henri's mistress to leave him in favour of Victor. When this leads to nothing, he somehow concludes that he is the victim, while Henri, in his mind, is a swindler, a knave, an unworthy man who is being rewarded for his unpleasantness while he, Victor, is caring and nice and honourable. He repeats this behavior with several other characters, behaves inappropriately but continues to believe that he is the one being hard done-by. He is not a likeable character. And yet I adored him. Most men under the age of thirty will. Most men who remember being under the age of thirty will. He is so many young men, in so many different eras. In many ways, it's slightly depressing to think so little has changed in a hundred years.
The book reminded me of so many other books: 'The Catcher in the Rye' and 'No Longer Human.' But mostly, it reminded me of 'The Sundays of Jean Desert.' The only difference being that while the protagonist in that book is aware of his place in the world, accepts it with a cool, almost profound indifference, Victor is confused, lonely and heartbreakingly sad. He is what so many men are at that young age. When I read the words: 'but a woman only has to look at me for me to find her attractive.' I couldn't help but smile and think:. 'Yep, we've all been there, mate.' And I loved how Victor fantasised about the slightest potential future at every available opportunity. He would see a girl and imagine their life together. He would meet a strange, suicidal man and envision a future where they would be best friends with a sincere bond.
He is pathetic. He is beautiful. I loved him. I loved this.10/10
-
Started reading 'My Friends' by Emmanuel Bove
-
RIP Robbie Coltrane
May I offer my most enthusiastic... contrafibularities.
-
1
-
-
I read almost exclusively in the bath. How much I read is dependent upon the book.
-
-
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) Laurie Lee
Much like Sebald's 'Rings of Saturn' there is something of a creative and fictional current running through 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.' I'm starting to think that travel writers are in possession of the most beautiful language.
Lee begins by leaving his home in Stroud and heading to the south coast where he makes money as a violin busker. He eventually makes his way to London where he works on a building site. But the book really begins when he arrives in Spain, starting at Vigo, moving on to Zamora, Valladolid, Madrid, Toledo, Malaga, Gibraltar, and ending in Almuñécar. He details the people and landscapes of each new place as well as his various encounters with brothels and drinking establishments. Again, he makes a living by playing his violin or simply relying on the kindess of strangers often sleeping rough or making do with whatever comes his way. The book then ends with the beginnings of the civil war.
The real treat of the book, however, is the writing. He has such an amazing turn of phrase and describes things in a manner that produces genuinely provocative images in your mind. Each sentence is beautifully crafted and offers a glorious flow of exquisite prose. Not to mention some very funny (and very British) interpretations. Such as his encounter with a mother pimping her own daughter.
"Then one of them beckoned me indoors and offered me her giant daughter, who lay sprawled on a huge brass bed. The sight of the girl and the bed, packed into that tiny room, was like some familiar 'Alice' nightmare. I could only smile and stutter, clutching the doorpost and pretending not to understand. 'Love!' cried the mother, shaking the bed till it rattled, while the girl bounced slowly like a basking whale. I complimented the woman and made some excuse, saying that it was too early in the day."8/10
-
Bought 'My Friends' by Emmanuel Bove.
-
Mostly fiction but I find a lot of the best writing is found in travel writing and memoir.
-
I'm reading 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' and was tickled by a particular line...
"The woman asked me in French if I was German, and I replied in Spanish that I was English."
It occurred to me that there isn't a section here to post quotes (that I can see) so I thought I'd start this thread.
-
2
-
-
-
Started reading 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Evening' by Laurie Lee.
-
1
-
-
Alone in Berlin (1947) Hans Fallada
A sweeping, traditional third person narration that contains myriad characters and plot points but which is very easy to follow and extremely entertaining. The primary plot concerns Otto and Anna Quangel (based on real people) who, after the death of their son on the French front, begin dropping postcards around Berlin as a kind of banal protest against the Nazis. This is as much as they can do and in many ways the whole book is about the ineffectual and clumsy method of resisting something as powerful as the third reich. In the meantime, we encounter several other characters who, often quite tangentially, are connected to the Quangels and their subversive acts. Specifically, inspector Escherich who, to begin with, isn't all that impressed by the triviality of the postcards or their authors. But that soon changes. And eventually, the Gestapo are determined to catch whoever is responsible no matter how ineffectual their campaign might be.
Based on a true story but massively fictionalised. The writing is straight-forward and to-the-point as stories like these tend to be. The prose never needs to be challenging because the book is very much plot driven rather than being literary writing for its own sake (a genre which generally doesn't appeal to me all that much). But this was excellent. The thrill being found in their transgressive resistance combined with the inspector's investigation (not to mention the growing sense of paranoia and terror which various other citizens of Nazi Germany are experiencing).
And that seems to be one of the main themes. The way power corrupts and turns people into monsters often because they too are fearful of the consequences. Escherich goes from benign investigator to a panicked and beaten coward to, finally, the solitary convert of the Quangel's. But the book also romanticises the idea of minimal resistance. Because the truth is almost no-one in the book objects to the Nazis on ethical grounds (judge Fromm aside). Most, if not all of them, began as fervent admirers of Hitler and each have come to despise him for different reasons which don't really touch on the ethical issues. Perhaps Fallada is saying something here. The book, after all, was written in 1947, a time when it was very easy to be an anti-Nazi (when everyone who survived the war probably claimed they always were from the beginning). It's also telling that Borkhausen, an apolitical reprobate, survives the war. Because those who said nothing, and kept their heads down, were not just the condemned but also very often the winners. Whether it be their apathy or their belated ineffectual resistance, both are equally as condemnable.
But the book ends optimistically (albeit with a somewhat cliched contrivance). Borkhausem's son, Kuno, now adopted by Eva, rejects his father and intends to live a fruitful and useful life. Because it isn't genetics that matters when it comes to human decency. It's how we are raised and educated.9/10
-
2
-
-
-
-
Bought 'Madonna in a Fur Coat' by Sabahattin Ali.
-
-
-
-
Starting 'Alone in Berlin' by Hans Fallada.
-
Part IV is called Indiana Jones And the 'Realm of Zimmer frames.'
-
-
Hux Book Blog 2022 (Spoilers)
in Past Book Logs
Posted · Edited by Hux
The Loser (1983) Thomas Berhard
A man reminisces about two friends who have died, one by natural causes, the other by suicide. All three men were great pianists but one (Glenn Gould) had talent far beyond the other two. This is something which the narrator can accept but which the second man, Wertheimer, struggles with. The narrator details the events of their lives, their families, and their failures. Specifically, he focuses on Wertheimer, the loser of the title, and his depression and eventual suicide.
If you've seen the film Amadeus then you've tread this ground before. The gifted coming to terms with their limitations when confronted by actual genius. It's an interesting tale and one worth being told in several ways but I found Berhard's style a little repetitive and hard to engage with. The book has no chapters and no paragraphs and is one long slew of human consciousness making sense of past events. It's essentially stream of consciousness (but with incongruently excellent grammar) and he repeatedly tells us that he is 'walking into an inn' for the first half of the book, once every few pages. Or he ends sentences with 'I thought' on almost every page which seemed unnecessary. It's an interesting idea (the whole book taking place as a man walks into an inn) but Berhard abandons this halfway through and begins to slow the process down entirely (which slightly contradicts the whole flow if you ask me). My history with stream of consciousness has been very hit and miss but one thing I thought this book lacked was actually streams of unfiltered thought. It's all rather well written, structured, and grammatically correct. If you're going to let your thoughts flow then why is everything so neat and tidy?
That aside, I enjoyed the book for the most part and became increasingly engaged as I read (despite the change of pace in the second half). It's interesting that Berhard uses Glenn Gould (an actual pianist but one he never personally met) as the figure which inspires Wertheimer's spiral into self-doubt rather than a fictional character; and I enjoyed the themes surrounding identity and our notions of success and value as human beings. But I can't say I was gripped or moved in any meaningful way. Though I was probably stirred enough to seek out more of his work.
7/10