My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said it out loud so maybe I will really do it.
November is Norwegian month at Dolce Bellezza. I will be joining her by reading at least the
first novel, The Other Name (2019), of Jon Fosse’s Septology, and
polar explorer Roald Amunden’s memoir My Life as an Explorer
(1927). Please join in the alliterative
fun.
FICTION
The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder (1925), Edgar Wallace – “The
author of crime novels at one time so popular that every fourth book sold in
Britain came from his pen” is how H. R. F. Keating introduces the extraordinary
hack Edgar Wallace in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books (1987, p.
31). Can this possibly be true? Exactly when, I wonder. But it is true that although Agatha Christie
won the war, Wallace won the early battles.
For a couple of decades in the detective novels of other writers, Edgar
Wallace is the common reference, the mystery writer all of the characters
apparently read, and the creator of all of the clichés that you won’t find in my
novel, or if you do we can wink at them as deliberate Edgar Wallace stuff.
Wallace writes in a light, witty version of the 1920s
British house style, simpler than Christie who is in turn simpler than Dorothy
Sayers, not as funny as Wodehouse or Waugh, obviously, but with some good jokes
in their line. The crimes and solutions
(this is a book of linked short stories) are nonsense but much more than
those of many of his peers? Not much
more. Easy, fun reading.
Passing (1929), Nella Larsen
Chevengur (1929/1972), Andrei Platonov – I’ll write about this one soon. The quotation in the title is from Chevengur, p. 151.
Dark Avenues (1946), Ivan Bunin – This one, too.
The Remains of the Day (1989), Kazuo Ishiguro – For several
years the contemporary writers who have attracted my attention have mostly been
– see the next two books – conceptual art weirdos who are not necessarily trying
to write great or perfect books. But I
still enjoy such things, like this one.
An intricate construction. At
times I almost – well, an experienced or jaded reader, I did not applaud or
gasp, but I sure thought “Oh, good one, nicely done” or the equivalent.
Game of the Worlds (2000), César Aira
Half an Inch of Water (2015), Percival Everett –
Short stories set in the Rocky Mountains.
Of a piece with his novels, except with more horses.
A Shining (2023), Jon Fosse – A single short story
for some reason published as a book.
Minor.
POETRY
The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013 (1948-62), Derek
Walcott – Some apprentice work, I guess, absorbing the influence of many other
poets, but getting darn good by the end (meaning 1962). Who knows when I will follow Walcott into the
1960s and 1970s.
O Lovely England and Other Poems (1952), Walter de la
Mare – His last poetry book, barely distinguishable from his first in 1902. Fifty years of lovely England, lovely poetry.
Collected Poems (1953-85), Elizabeth Jennings – A British
Catholic in the quadrant with Auden and Larkin, maybe. “Art is not self-expression while, for me, ‘confessional
poetry’ is almost a contradiction in terms” (13). Lots of interesting poems about paintings and
music, and, sadly, mental asylums.
Sonnets for a Missing Key and some others (2024), Percival
Everett
ADVENTURE AND JOURNALISM
The Royal Road to Romance (1925), Richard Halliburton
– Fresh out of Princeton, young Halliburton begins what will become a round the
world tour. His tramp through Europe has
me wondering why I was reading this trivial book, but it gets more interesting
once he gets to India, and his enthusiasm, his love of the “romance” of pure
movement, never stops. I am reading another
book about a tramp across Europe just a few years later, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s
The Time of Gifts (1977), and they are opposites, in style, purpose, and
tone. Halliburton’s book may now be more
interesting as part of the history of travel writing, the creation of the celebrity
traveler, now I assume found on Instagram, than for its own sake.
A Writer at War (2005), Vasily Grossman – Another I
will write a bit about separately, I swear.
FRENCH AND PORTUGUESE
Coral (1950), Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen – Sophia’s
mythological seashore poems take a dark turn in her third book.
Pedra Filosofal (1950), Jorge de Sena – Abstract compared
to Breyner Andresen, and more difficult for the poor language learner.
O Cavaleiro da Dinamarca (1964), Sophia de Mello
Breyner Andresen – The Knight from Denmark, a peculiar children’s
novella which gives a little tour of European culture. Portuguese children learn about Giotto and
Dante and so on. An oddity. The other children’s books I have read of
Breyner Andresen – and bless her, the Portuguese language learner says, for
writing them – were about little children having magical adventures.
Mes Cahiers (1941), Colette – My Notebooks, a wartime
scrapbook dump, of most interest for stories featuring early versions of her
Cheri character. But then there is some
travel writing from the 1920s that is exquisitely written, almost abstract assemblages
of form and color.
La Douleur (1985), Marguerite Duras – More notebooks,
which the older Duras says she does not remember writing, about the events of
the end of the war in Paris, like waiting for loved ones to return from camps,
or the Resistance punishing collaborators.
Of high interest for the subject matter.
In English as The War.
Did you love Passing? I really love Passing.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to hear your thoughts on Chevungur and, esp, the Bunin. I feel like I might really like him, Fabulously interesting reading month, as usual.
Well, there is no way I will ever love Passing the way you do! I do not, to my knowledge, pass much.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the issue, and heaven knows Larsen is writing in a long American tradition, of her terrible prose. I mean, I have read 2,000 pages of Poe, 2,000 pages of Dreiser, so this is not the deal-breaker it would have been in my youth. But Larsen gets off some doozies. Love would be tough.
I love where the plot went. Not expecting that!
Yes, Bunin tomorrow, Platonov the next day.
You really have been reading across a wide range of interests. Lots of fascinating books, and I have scribbled down several. I remember my grandfather, a Polish Jew by descent, with fluent Yiddish and a Devonian accent reading Edgar Wallace in little red volumes. He was a haulier with 3 trucks, a garden to look after, but always sat at 9 to read, first Wallace to unwind, then politics, philosophy, or history. He let me read some, but I didn't like them, nor Christie, although her biography and work with Maloran on archaeology is interesting. I did get the idea that a working class child could read whatever she could afford from the massive local secondhand bookshop. I love Dorothy L Sayers, and her translation of Dante was my first read of Divine Comedy. This summer I read the John Ciardi translation. I am reading a lot from the early Nobel Prize for Literature list, from the beginning, and am now up to the 50s. I'm keenly anticipating your plans for next year.
ReplyDeleteLots of promises in this blog post, Tom.
ReplyDeleteOne post up, one to go.
ReplyDeleteDorian, I somehow forgot, but one of the Bunin stories features one of your literary interests, sex with a bear. "Iron Coat."
At some point Edgar Wallace books must have been everywhere, in big heaps, like the endless boxes of Simenon paperbacks at the weekend French book markets. But I guess they are mostly gone now. Unlike Dante, as eternal as literature will ever be.
I have filled in some of those early Nobelists, but nothing close to a complete list. Here is my most delicious encounter with one of them, Rudolf Eucken.