Look, the issue is not that I do not want to write but that the cat in the lap makes it hard to type.
September was a long time ago.
SHAKESPEARE’S PALS
A Book of Ayres (1601) &
Two Books of Ayres (1613?) &
The Third and Fourth Book of Ayres (1617), Thomas
Campion – An unusual poet in English literature, an author of songs who is read
for his lyrics, granted that many of them are adaptations of Catullus and
Propertius and so on. Such an
interesting musical period. Please
recommend recordings if you have a favorite.
The Naxos volume seems plenty good to me.
The Revenger's Tragedy (1606), ??? – Discussed back here.
FICTION
Titus Groan (1946), Mervyn Peake – I should write
about this book separately. It is a
marvel. The fragment in the title of the
post is from p. 338 of the single-volume Overlook edition.
Labyrinths (1953), Jorge Luis Borges – Just the
essays, actually, which I suppose in some sense are not fiction.
Sleeping Beauty (1973), Ross MacDonald – A kind
Brazilian on Twitter, unhappy that so many people have such conventional top 10
favorites, gave me this one as one of his unconventional favorites. Perhaps he was mocking me. Anyway that is why my first MacDonald mystery
is the ninth in a series. An offshore
oil spill threatens Los Angeles, growing worse as the novel progresses. A literal noir! That was my favorite part of the book, the
massive, blatant, but meaningful symbol hanging over it all. I liked other parts enough that this weekend
I spent two dollars on the first in the series.
The Frog in the Throat (1985), Markus Werner – A kind
reader recommended this outstanding Swiss novel, now published by NYRB
Classics, about a man dealing with his grief at the loss of his difficult
father. The novel is all voice, or two
voices, alternating chapters narrated by the man whose life has fallen apart
and then by his quite different father, or presumably the man imagining the
voice of his father. A fine narrative
feat.
POETRY
Canto General (1950), Pablo Neruda – Like his model
Whitman an ambitious mix of lyricism, lists and occasional kitsch, the ode to
Stalin being the nadir. But there were
many peaks.
Living Together: New and Selected Poems (1973) &
For Louis Pasteur (1989), Edgar Bowers – A fine
formalist American poet.
The Gavin Ewart Show: Selected Poems 1939-1985
(1986), Gavin Ewart – Sometimes as good as Larkin, and often funnier.
IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE & SPANISH
Alturas de Macchu Picchu (1947), Pablo Neruda - Ha ha, many peaks, get it? In particular, The Heights of Macchu Picchu
section of Canto General, published a bit earlier. Could I read it in Spanish? I could.
Oughtta get my Spanish in shape.
Mémoires d'Hadrien (1951), Marguerite Yourcenar
Os melhores contos brasileiros de ficção científica (The
Best Brazilian Science Fiction Stories, 1882-1997), various – Setting aside the first two
stories, an immortality fantasy by Machado de Assis and a 1930s rewrite of Poe’s
“William Wilson,” this useful collection showcases Brzailian writers who got
interested in prestige American science fiction – Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov,
that crowd. Lots of post-nuclear apocalypse,
just like in the U.S. Quite interesting.
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