tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post4409489694750637904..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Written Lives, the Javier Marías book that is most like a bag of potato chips or season of 30 Rock on DVD or whatever your metaphor for compulsively readable might beAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-75063689106696989762011-07-11T21:56:55.097-05:002011-07-11T21:56:55.097-05:00Good, good. It's a most enjoyable book for bo...Good, good. It's a most enjoyable book for bookish folks.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82381057256505772622011-07-11T12:59:27.355-05:002011-07-11T12:59:27.355-05:00Hilarious. I just went straight from here to Amazo...Hilarious. I just went straight from here to Amazon. Bravo!Celeste85https://www.blogger.com/profile/05575580291868960322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-54268862223219658512011-07-09T19:24:25.702-05:002011-07-09T19:24:25.702-05:00I remember the Lampedusa piece as a favorite. Or ...I remember the Lampedusa piece as a favorite. Or as a <i>positive</i> favorite. The slash jobs Rise mentions are a scream.<br /><br />I had not noticed that the Marías quotation was so clearly modeled on "Borges and I." Muy bien.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13238351672738578412011-07-09T10:22:04.804-05:002011-07-09T10:22:04.804-05:00I have had this on my shelf and, thanks to you, I ...I have had this on my shelf and, thanks to you, I am now reading it—compulsively, of course. It's wonderful! Read this in the section on Lampedusa and thought of you and your as-yet-nonexistent boredom project:<br />"He had not only read all the important and essential writers, but also the second-rate and the mediocre, whom, especially as regards the novel, he considered to be as necessary as the great: 'One has to learn how to be bored,' he used to say, and he read bad literature with interest and patience."<br /><br />Okay, I thought of myself a little bit too.nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-46538362433064068362011-07-09T00:36:23.129-05:002011-07-09T00:36:23.129-05:00I relished this one. The "biography as gossip...I relished this one. The "biography as gossip" is really a fun genre. Also loved his scathing entries on Joyce, Mishima, and Rilke. Perhaps making an entry on himself ("Marías and I") would be too beholden to Borges. So the <i>Dark Back of Time</i> is perfect realization of this double existence as writer and character. <br /><br />(Your quote yesterday: "I said I no longer know if there is one of us or two, at least while I am writing. Now I know that of those two possible figures, one would have to be fictitious." is a hat tip to <a href="http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/2011/05/borges-and-i/" rel="nofollow">Borges</a> - "I live, I let myself live, so that Borges can plot his literature and that literature justifies me.... I don’t know which of the two writes this page.")Risehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17446964640160585194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-70484172377099301352011-07-08T23:41:21.956-05:002011-07-08T23:41:21.956-05:00Kevin - Oh me, too. I can dismiss my doubts by co...Kevin - Oh me, too. I can dismiss my doubts by considering that each of the four or five page pieces in this book condenses and one hopes, for most readers, replaces an 800 page biography. Marías has pulled out all of the best curiosities.<br /><br />Scott - You have made me realize that Marías is making an anti-Borgesian gesture. The books are real - his own books, books he mentions in his own books - and everything else is invented.<br /><br />My little series on Alberto Caeiro was perhaps my most Borgesian gesture, writing about real poems by an imaginary poet.<br /><br />I did not know that about David Mitchell.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-18030363183330135432011-07-08T18:04:00.766-05:002011-07-08T18:04:00.766-05:00The next best bad idea will be to write reviews of...The next best bad idea will be to write reviews of books you've never read. And then, a la Borges, you can write reviews of books that have <i>never been written.</i><br /><br />I enjoyed your post yesterday, tying together a bunch of Marías' work into one metanovel. David Mitchell has something similar (but far more slight) going on in his books: they're all connected (or maybe "connectable" is better) by blood-ties of some of the characters. Not to the level of Faulkner; I think it's just something Mitchell does for his own amusement.<br /><br />-scott baileyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-16935987939748970332011-07-08T17:16:49.342-05:002011-07-08T17:16:49.342-05:00"When I had it in my hands, though, it was to..."When I had it in my hands, though, it was too compulsively fun to stop reading."<br /><br />I love know what great novelists read and what they think of other writers.<br /><br />Love it.<br /><br />KAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com