Top Retellings of Classic Tales

My Reading in 2024 (Part One)

For some reason, I shall post here a list of books finished in the first half of this year, on the same principles as mentioned in this previous blog post.

Well, here's the list:

Bradley, Ian - The Celtic Way (Finished 11th January 2024)
Marx, Karl - The Essential Writings of (Fin. 11th January 2024)
Underhill, Evelyn - Mysticism (Finished 15th January 2024)
Samuels, Mark - The Age of Decayed Futurity (Fin. 17th January 2024)
Chesterton, G.K. - The Everlasting Man (Fin. 21st January 2024)
Sima Qian - The First Emperor (Selections from the Shiji) (Finished 27th January 2024)
Bunton, Martin - The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Fin. 27th January 2024)
Crisp, Tony - Peer Dreaming (Fin. 30th January 2024)
Alioto, Anthony M. - A History of Western Science (Fin. 9th February 2024)
Plato - Meno (Fin. 13th February 2024)
Gissing, George - The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (Fin 15th February 2024)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Elective Affinities (Fin. 28th February 2024)
Finny, Jack - The Body Snatchers (Fin. 4th March 2024)
Misak, C.J. - Verificationism (Fin. 6th March 2024)
Samuels, Mark - Black Altars (Finished re-reading 18th March 2024, I think.)
Warner, Sylvia Townsend – Lolly Willowes (Fin. 23rd March 2024)
Samuels, Mark – Charnel Glamour (Fin. 2nd April 2024)
Crisp, Quentin S. – The Flowering Hedgerow (Fin. 17th April 2024)
Machen, Arthur – The Secret Glory (Fin. 18th April 2024)
Clapham, Andrew – Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Fin. 19th April 2024)
Crisp, Quentin S. – Autumn and Spring Annals (Fin. 30th April 2024)
Camus, Albert - The Outsider (Fin re-reading 1st May 2024)
Eiseley, Loren – The Night Country (fin. 17th May 2024)
MacKenzie, Victoria – For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain (Fin. 20th May 2024)
O’Donohue, John – Anam Cara (Fin. 28th May 2024)
Ruete, Emily – Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar (Fin. 22nd June 2024)
Keene, Donald (editor) – Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Fin. 26th June 2024)

Other notable reading (of things not yet finished), includes Nagai Kafu's 'Behind the Prison', which I am reading with occasional reference to Jay Rubin's atrocious translation. When they die, writers are at the mercy of various kinds of philistines, it seems.
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Published on August 03, 2024 11:06
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message 1: by Simon (new)
Aug 09, 2024 04:16AM

Simon That is way more heavy academic writing and old-fashioned British horror fiction than I have been reading, interesting to compare your reading with mine. The biggest change for me has been rediscovering old fashioned American crime novels, most notably the work of Elmore Leonard. Who makes the whole "convoluted yet concise unpredictable narrative that constantly swerves between serious suspense and absurd humour with a lot of eccentric characters from very different cultural backgrounds and social classes" storytelling style look way easier than it is for most others.

(come to think of it, I wonder if he was an influence on Brendan Connell when writing "The Galaxy Club"?)


message 2: by Simon (last edited Aug 10, 2024 02:24AM) (new)
Aug 09, 2024 04:35AM

Simon If there is one "theme" to the art, literature etc I explore right now it's that I look at the other contemporary artists whom I used to often compare myself to, and then focus on the inspiration sources that I do NOT share with most of them. I think it's important to develop your own creative universe that doesn't overlap THAT much with artists you correspond and collaborate with, so you don't end up feeling you have to succeed at the exact same set of goals as they do.


message 3: by Quentin (new)
Aug 09, 2024 01:39PM

Quentin Crisp Simon wrote: "If there is one "theme" to the art, literature etc I explore right now it's that I look at the other contemporary artists whom I used to often compare myself to, and then focus on the inspiration s..."

Yes, not a bad policy. It would be a shame if we all read the same things.


message 4: by Simon (last edited Aug 10, 2024 03:01AM) (new)
Aug 10, 2024 02:23AM

Simon I also don't enjoy feeling like I am competing creatively with other artists, whereas other creators do feel most satisfied in that mentality, and I likewise feel uncomfortable if I get stuck in any type of bubble regarding inspiration sources and subject matter.

Which reminds me of the problem with narrow pools of influence, as James Ellroy has complained about in crime fiction and Michael Moorcock about in fantasy. Likewise, that infamous Hayao Miyazaki quote "anime was a mistake" was a bad translation of when he criticised the anime industry for largely being ran by people who ONLY watch anime and have very little experience with other televisual media. I sometimes wonder if the Neo-Decadent movement, which I know you through, risks succumbing to that on account of having a very clearly defined collection of influences: The core being late 19th/early 20th century modernist fiction, 1960's/1970's New Wave Science Fiction and classical Japanese literature. I've developed more of an interest in the first one precisely through the movement, but I hope that I don't get stuck in that as a comfort zone.

One reason I've returned to the US pulp crime fiction/film noir inspiration is that I can tell it's only a major influence for Salvattore Beteta. Even if the one book by Brendan Connell that I have read so far, "The Galaxy Club", is a novel in that style I can tell it's a deliberate outlier where Connell has decided to write something in a niche he usually doesn't have much to do with. Kinda forms a parallel to Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" now that I think of it, even if there were elements of parodying the classical American detective novel in "Vineland".


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