Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the first thread of 2022. (2022 somehow looks much more Sci Fi-ish than 2021 did. I feel like I'm going to bump into a replicant any minute now. Or maybe I'm just looking for Harrison Ford?)

Welcome especially to those new members who have just joined us. We're delighted to have you aboard.

The last thread covered such a long period that I'm just going to leave it be, except to say that I hope you all had a good holiday season. I notice that @Machenbach and @Fuzzywuzz posted reviews very close to the cut off. Can you two repost those reviews on this new thread to get us off to a fine start, please?

After a reading dry spell over Christmas, I'm now reading Mikhail Bulgakov's The White Guard and enjoying it enormously. I started it in early December when there was much Russian discussion on the thread, then put it down when life got in the way and picked it up again a few days ago. Set in Kiev in December 1918 at a critical point for the future of the city, it's a terrific depiction of this bit of the Russian Civil War - so far, anyway. I feel like I'm right there in the thick of it.

Over to all of you now. Tell us about what you're reading, and if you've made any reading resolutions for 2022.

Finally, congratulations to Lisa on moving into her new home after a long road's journey. I assume I can speak on behalf of everyone and say we hope you will be very happy there. And thank you for all you do, and have done, for this community.

Glad you're enjoying it! Though that definitely wasn't set in 2018 ;)

Anastasia wrote: "Glad you're enjoying it! Though that definitely wasn't set in 2018 ;)"

Haha. Thanks!

Machenbach wrote: "By the way, I certainly won't be risking contempt of court by reposting my review of The Eustace Diamonds in blatant disregard of the court injunction. ..."

That's a shame. I thought it well worth reading.

Anne wrote: "Finally, congratulations to Lisa on moving into her new home after a long road's journey...."

Thank you, Anne! If all goes well, Mario and I will actually sleep at the new place tomorrow night!

And thank you for your excellent - and amusing - stewardship!

Two from me, both recommended..

One Moonlit Night: Novel by Caradog Prichard translated from Welsh by Philip Mitchell.
One of the reasons why Michael Palin's Four Yorkshiremen sketch goes down so well as that it is rooted in fact..

In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
In a filthy, cracked cup.

.
No one denies that times were hard.
But in this novel based around his own experiences, Prichard describes life for a young boy (who narrates) growing up in the village of Bethesda in North Wales during the First World War. Times were incredibly hard.
The boy, I guess about 10 years old, has several graphic encounters, from dying to death to mental illness, that are told without prejudice or judgement, and because of that, all the more unsettling. Roaming silently amidst sadistic teachers, priests, policemen and illness, the boy is observant, but aware of his inability to alter what is going on around him. He expresses himself only in that he will not work in the slate quarry.

It was raining stair rods in the morning and I was sitting in school with wet feet cos my shoes leaked.

He excuses himself to visit the bathroom, but in trying to find dry socks, finds a dead body.
Prichard's prose works so well as there is usually a balance, a bad experience is followed by a good one; a football match, some humorous anecdote, or riotous outdoor adventures in what is now, Snowdonia National Park.
To any appreciator of that area, such as myself having spent so much time there, this novel is a must. Or indeed to the ruin, high up on Denbigh Moor, of its old asylum.


And, Hotel Iris by Yōko Ogawa translated by Stephen Snyder.
Set in a moldy seaside hotel presumably on the Japanese coast, Ogawa's rather dark story, concerns narrator Mari, a 17 year old high school dropout and daughter of the officious owner. She becomes involved with a middle-aged unnamed stranger, a Russian translator, who she meets after an incident he is involved with in the hotel, with a prostitute. Soon Mari is entangled, though willingly so, in a sordid series of tysts at the translator's isolated house off the coast. The brutality of the nature of the bondage and abuse is made even more shocking by Mari's lyrical and beguiling descriptions. For example,

The blades touched my abdomen. A cold shock ran through me, and my head began to spin. If he had pressed just a bit harder, the scissors might have pierced my soft belly. The skin would have peeled back, the fat beneath laid bare. Blood would have dripped on the bedspread.

The perverse pleasure in this novel is down to Mari's emotional ignorance; 17 she maybe, but she comes over as younger, more naïve, but with the rebelliousness of adolescence.
What stands out is Ogawa's mastery of mood, as in the three other works of hers that I have read. It is delightfully unconventional and evasive; it maybe Japan, but it just as well could be Bognor - it may well be contemporary, but it just as well could be the 1930s or 1950s.

Apropos Gobseck, we don’t think of Balzac as a trained lawyer, and he was an unreliable attendee during his three years as a clerk in a cabinet, and yet he must really have paid attention to the problems the clients brought in, because his command of the detail is impressive, and the legal twists in his novels are legion.

For @Fuzzywuzz - recommendations. But first, an explainer, I used to live in DC, so I remember the newspaper stories around these two Laura Lippman standalones. She took the nugget of both these stories and turned them into another narrative.

The books are What the Dead Know and And When She Was Good

I'll pick up And When She Was Good today when I return books to the library. Both are worth a re-read .

Hey all

Slightly poorly AB here, caught a hacking cough over Xmas(not covid) but unpleasent as sporadic coughing fits explode at bad times, like during the night

New reading year is going well, still in the throes of neice and nephew sitting but more time to myself now after a very, very busy December.

Raymond Chandler, Svetlana Alexeivich and Nam-Joo's South Korean novel "Kim Jiyoung Born 1982" all underway, plus Havels "Power of the Powerless"

I'm hoping i can shake the cough soon....no reading resolutions per se and thanks Anne and LL for all your work on the Ersatz TLS

Any Trekkies here? Found this in the NYTimes today. (They probably have a new year's subscribing come-on going if you've used up your free looks, but be careful as those have a way of morphing into something permanent on your card - thus speaks the voice of experience.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/ar...

And, as a bonus, if you venture to https://www.skirball.org/ and scroll down, you can sign up for The Books of Jacob talk in February.

It's a wonder I ever get anything done between reading and the net, the dust does pile up. However I am seriously thinking about buyingLaura Knight: A Panoramic View after seeing a promo from the Bletchley Park folks on FB.

Here's a link to the exhibition - https://mkgallery.org/event/laura-kni...

PS If you are interested and in the UK, it seems buying the book directly from the gallery might be the best way to go.

@Russell it's been a while since I read it, but I remember going from very sceptical to utterly fascinated. Probably the first time I came across a notion of IOUs in fiction, and quite elegantly executed too :)

@Mach it's only 60 pages or so ;)

Anne wrote: "... if you've made any reading resolutions for 2022."

Thanks Anne. My new year's resolution last year was to read more short novels, and American short novels in particular. I didn't end up holding to it, because I guess I realised I was spending much more on my reading habit. This year I'm going to follow through with it, expenditure be damned.

SydneyH wrote: "Anne wrote: "... if you've made any reading resolutions for 2022."

Thanks Anne. My new year's resolution last year was to read more short novels, and American short novels in particular. I didn't ..."

i do wonder how much we all spend a year on books. i'm always prepared to shell out if i see something i really want, up to a sensible limit but i rarely if ever, buy in hardback, so my costs are possibly lower than many.

the library and second hand shop peeps on here will be the lowest spenders, or maybe the kindlers?

I am astonished that some of you have managed over 100 books in a year with all the distractions of busy lives. I would imagine there are readers here who take up whole days with a book(wonderful), which makes me wonder if i'm less of a bookworm than i thought with just 66 books finished in 2021!!

AB76 wrote: "i do wonder how much we all spend a year on books."

Quite a bit for those of us buying all our books - though in varying currency. I'm not worried about the money, but I think I can be swayed by logistics and what is on sale. My theory is that in an ideal reading year you would dismiss those considerations and focus on what you feel like reading most.

AB76 wrote: "Hey all

Slightly poorly AB here, caught a hacking cough over Xmas(not covid) but unpleasent as sporadic coughing fits explode at bad times, like during the night

New reading year is going well, s..."

Sorry to hear about your cough, they really are a problem. But to put a more positive slant on it - with the exercise you are getting while coughing (it is hard work) it will help you lose any extra pounds you may have put on over Christmas. (or not!)

Started off with quite a frost this morning but I went into Nottingham to return a jumper I had bought which was too big (not something I can usually say) and actually was able to sit outside Caffè Nero in the sunshine to drink my coffee.

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Hey all

Slightly poorly AB here, caught a hacking cough over Xmas(not covid) but unpleasent as sporadic coughing fits explode at bad times, like during the night

New reading year is ..."

i actually ate less this Xmas than usual, not sure why...

Happy New Years to all members of the best book blog!
During a recent clear out I found some book vouchers - which were actually still valid, so indulged in some in person shopping to add to the TBR pile. The shop assistant said that I must have had them for a while!
Amongst the purchases were Hamnet; Apeirogon; Exciting Times; No One is Talking About this; and Snow by Banville. I count them as bonus books.
Started off the year by finishing Bel Canto. It was an interesting read, which held my attention, but did not blow my mind.
All the best with the move Lisa, and I hope Mario settles in well. Best wishes to all those with Christmas ailments (including the dreaded pandemic disease).

SydneyH wrote: "That was the one Wilson rated, which is how it caught my eye. I've based my choices on previews of the text to see which ones tempted me. By the way, Colum McCann seems to be a Jim Harrison fanboy"

Oh yes, I remember finding this in his old posts. He never answered me when I asked the ones he had read, so I don't know how salient that "preference" (which was rather a backhanded compliment) is... But if there might be some false negatives with TMW, I don't think that there are any false positive, so a recommendation is definitely worth listening to! And yes, I remember you mentioning that McCann is a big fan, which bumped him up my virtual TBR list :-)!

Re short American novels, I've just checked my French shelves, and found the NY trilogy by Auster, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Pearl by Steinbeck (not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend the latter). I can only remember from my UK shelves Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, which I think you may have read already, and As I lay Dying, which is excellent.

Hushpuppy wrote: "Re short American novels, I've just checked my French shelves"

Ta - I haven't read the Auster or The Steinbeck, but I've read the others.

AB76 wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "Anne wrote: "... if you've made any reading resolutions for 2022."

Thanks Anne. My new year's resolution last year was to read more short novels, and American short novels in parti..."

I, too, prefer paperbacks. This is one of the many changes I have made in consideration of time passing and finding paperbacks easier - especially because I read in bed.

Out of series sequence, I stumbled on a Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mystery - Coyote Waits. It is filling in blanks that I had from the ones I could get from the library. Coyote Waits was not available at the library so I'd been reading around it. Plus, it has more Navajo mythology than usual which is good - icing on the mystery cake.

Anastasia wrote: "@Russell it's been a while since I read it, but I remember going from very sceptical to utterly fascinated..."

Yes, he certainly knew the ins and outs of money obligations, and for good reason. The other legal area where he excelled was in relation to marriage and dowries and family inheritance. I once read La Femme et le Code civil dans “la Comédie Humaine” d’Honoré de Balzac by Maître Marie-Henriette Faillie (1968), which was entertaining in itself (at least for a lawyer) and was generally approving of the accuracy of Balzac’s plots.

AB76 wrote: "
I am astonished that some of you have managed over 100 books in a year with all the distractions of busy lives. I would imagine there are readers here who take up whole days with a book(wonderful), which makes me wonder if i'm less of a bookworm than i thought with just 66 books finished in 2021!!"

I only just realised you could check this on goodreads and looking back over the last 10 years or so,my average is pretty consistently in that territory: I think my lowest was 58 and my highest 70. From the images GR puts up underneath, I suspect the higher counts happen when I remember to include or note on GR more of the comics (or B-D, graphic novels, whatever you want to call them) that I read that year.

Russell wrote: "
Yes, he certainly knew the ins and outs of money obligations, and for good reason. The other legal area where he excelled was in relation to marriage and dowries and family inheritance. I once read La Femme et le Code civil dans “la Comédie Humaine” d’Honoré de Balzac by Maître Marie-Henriette Faillie (1968), which was entertaining in itself (at least for a lawyer) and was generally approving of the accuracy of Balzac’s plots."

Eugenie Grandet comes to mind.

Hi there Anne (happy new year to you and all). At your request, I reposted my last post from the previous discussion...

I finished The Secret Place by Tana French. This was a story of the investigation of the murder of Chris Harper, a pupil of St Colm's school, whose body was found in the grounds of all-girls' school St. Kilda's.

Things that were good about this story: The trials and tribulations of teenage girls were very well depicted; the interviews the police conducted with the girls believed to be involved were tense and believable and the pairing of Detective Conway with newby Stephen Moran was very good.

At one point of the story, I was very annoyed when the dynamics of the Murder Squad team was being explained to Stephen Moran by the father of one of the girls interviewed (Holly Mackey), who also happens to be a policeman.

Detective Conway, a strong female character is derided by her male counterparts because she doesn't 'play ball' and go along with their 'jokes'. Because of this, she is largely excluded from social events (I don't think this bothers her too much!) and much worse than that, is often the last person to be assigned important cases - in other word her work suffers.

My annoyance is because things like this do often happen in real life - a persons position in the workplace social strata should not supersede that persons competence or their ability for career progression. In this story, there is full knowledge that this happens to Conway, yet this is ignored.

My only critique of The Secret Place was that it was about 100 pages too long.

I'm now started Widespread Panic by James Ellroy.

Outside, it is about 5 degrees with hailstones. Proper cold weather, at last.

MK wrote: "For @Fuzzywuzz - recommendations. But first, an explainer, I used to live in DC, so I remember the newspaper stories around these two Laura Lippman standalones. She took the nugget of both these st..."

That's interesting! Thanks for the recommendation.

I'm really amazed at how many books some of you have read last year (Andy - a staggering 284!). I just about managed 42, which is realistic given how much time I devote to reading and my reading speed.

Someone (sorry, I can't remember who) mentioned how much is spent on books. I really don't know how much I spent on books last year. My reading fodder is a mixture of library, new and second hand books. I might keep a list of books bought this year, just to see what I do spend.

Which brings me to New Years Resolutions. I made a mental vague note about what I should be doing better (reading more that I did last year - I'll try to get to 45 books this year, reading what is on my shelf at home and eating healthier/getting more exercise). Of those, only the first has a reasonable chance of success.

I'm halfway through Widespread Panic by James Ellroy. Once you get past the annoying alliterative sentence fillers, there's a half decent story in there. Freddy Otash - the central character is former police/private investigator and now a 'journalist'; the other characters are from the Hollywood acting elite)/police etc.

Most of the characters in this story have zero morals and the police are corrupt and dangerous thugs, which is a running theme in Ellroy's books.

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I'm really amazed at how many books some of you have read last year (Andy - a staggering 284!). I just about managed 42, which is realistic given how much time I devote to reading and my reading sp..."

Looks like we are both in LA crime territory Fuzzy. Me with the early 1950s version of the city from Raymond Chandler and you with the Ellroy version.

Chandler captures LA before it became a much more diverse city from the 1960s onwards with white flight leading to much larger mixed african-american and hispanic populations in the inner city.

Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in devout silence, kissed his exposed arse and emitted a sharp bark of adulation while slapping his buttocks briefly with the flat of their blades.

Just the sort of entertainment needed for a snowy January morning..
(The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman)

AB76 wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I'm really amazed at how many books some of you have read last year (Andy - a staggering 284!). I just about managed 42, which is realistic given how much time I devote to reading..."

I've got 'The Big Sleep and Other Novels' on my shelf. I can't wait to get stuck into those.

Andy wrote: "Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in devout silen..."

That is an image that I'm not going to forget in a hurry...good job I didn't have a gob full of coffee whilst reading that!

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Andy wrote: "Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in..."

Someone, I can’t recall who, maybe from this group, said that this was their favourite ever novel.
One things for sure, her writing is consistently brilliant.
That old conundrum, if there was one person, living or dead, you could sit at the bar and share a drink and a chat with..
I had always thought of Peter Cook, but these days I think Angela Carter would be my request.

Andy wrote: "Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in devout silen..."

Freud would have a field day with that!

The Traffic Systems of Pompeii

Not the title of a post-modern novel but a fine archaeological study by Eric Poehler (OUP, 2017) of every paving stone, stepping stone, curb stone, guard stone, fountain, corner, wheel rut, ramp and groove in the 79 excavated streets, and what it all means, through the centuries, for traffic and drainage and cart design. Eventually much of it looks like Manhattan, with a few avenues that are longer and wider and a lot of narrower cross-town streets in alternating directions. The evidence suggests that on two-way streets they drove on the right when they couldn’t drive in the middle. Six dense chapters of close observation and tight reasoning lead to a ride through the congested city with Sabinus the mule-driver slave taking a ponderous cart-load of storage jars from his master’s town house to the country estate. Will we make it?

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler(1953), is his longest and i think last Marlowe novel(there are short story collections published later)

I'm about 100 pages in and a novel of men and tough talk, occasional violence and the curious character of Marlowe. This hard edged PI, is in a pickle over the death of a friend, who is linked to the murder of his wife.(though this "friend" was a paper thin character who seemed more like somebody he had a drink with once or twice)

I can almost smell the musty air of male clothing, sweat and tired faces, streaked with stubble, the stench of spirits and petrol. I'm sure something feminine will arrive sooner or later but there is something quite ugly about this male world, nothing to do with Chandler, who is on fine form

I wanted to read an LA based novel, from long before the images of LA i grew up with and decided to start 2022 with the longest Chandler novel i could find.

To @AB, @Fuzzy and other crime readers - I've read nearly everything by three LA crime writers, and it's interesting how different the city 'feels' in those different hands - Chandler, Ellroy and Walter Mosley, even though there is a degree of overlap in the time scale (1950s for all three). The different perspectives must reflect the different backgrounds (and interests) of the authors, I think...

I haven't read 'Widespread Panic', though, so I'll be interested to see how 'readable' or otherwise that is, given the slog that was 'This Storm'...

scarletnoir wrote: "To @AB, @Fuzzy and other crime readers - I've read nearly everything by three LA crime writers, and it's interesting how different the city 'feels' in those different hands - Chandler, Ellroy and W..."

hi scarlet, i read an article earlier today that suggested Chandler invented an LA of his own mind in many ways.

The only other LA novel i have read, non-Chandler, was Chester Himes "If He Hollers" (1945)where the prosperous, racist world of wartime LA was evocative, i could feel the endless sun, the vile racial divides and sense of a city growing and growing with wartime industry.

With Chandler i try and block out the myriad hollywood 1950s films that portray the same city and i get the feel of a slightly jaded and lonely city from his writing, a city with a dark underbelly but beautiful too, in its own way. He has a skill of not really describing much of the city at all, you get short and cutting paragraphs that capture Santa Monica or the Hills

I get an idea of a city with a very comfortable climate descending into the motorcar madness and population explosions of the 1960s and 70s

About LA mysteries, Joe Ide has written several books featuring Isaiah Quintabe, and in looking the author up, I see that the first book - IQ won an Edgar for best first novel in 2017. I liked at least the first two books in the series, but rather soured on either #3 or #4 which may be a personal problem.

So imagine my surprise when I just went to my library website only to find that the author has branched out with an upcoming book - The Goodbye Coast, taking Philip Marlowe into to the modern era. Of course I put a hold on it. Pub date 1 Feb.

And downloaded The High Window just because.

giveusaclue wrote: "Andy wrote: "Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in..."

I think so. Several papers do link the work to Freud with its obvious portrayal of ego and fetishism. But it’s done with a feminist slant, and great humour.

This poem by November31 was written in response this week to Marvell’s The Mower’s Song on Poem of the Week. I thought that it would amuse you as much as it did me.

The Librarian’s Song

I once had every tidy shelf
A true reflection of myself,
Where books stood upright side by side
By Dewey duly classified.
But Juliana came and took
My heart, and flipped it like an unsold, unread book.

The way she shoved my stock about . . .
I felt my pages falling out;
With narrow margins, print too small
I could not read myself at all
When Juliana came and took
My heart, and flipped it like an unsold, unread book.

The library, once so pleasant, seemed
To shudder as her glasses gleamed,
With every item wrongly placed
And every borrowed book defaced,
When Juliana came and took
My heart, and flipped it like an unsold, unread book.

Her books (all overdue) returned,
I held them to my heart, and yearned
To press my hands where hers had pressed,
And see my library love undressed;
For Juliana came and took
My heart, and flipped it like an unsold, unread book.

I keep an image, nothing real,
Despite the pangs of love I feel;
Cold and sharp her glasses glint
And promise only love in print.
But Juliana came and took
My heart, and flipped it like an unsold, unread book.

AB76 wrote: "The only other LA novel i have read, non-Chandler, was Chester Himes "If He Hollers" (1945)where the prosperous, racist world of wartime LA was evocative..."

That's interesting, AB - I have read several of Hines's Harlem (NYC) based novels, but didn't know he had written one based in LA - I must look that one up.

For racism in LA, no-one covers it better than Mosley in his Easy Rawlins mysteries, taking the character from the 1940s through to the 1960s...

MK wrote: "About LA mysteries, Joe Ide has written several books featuring Isaiah Quintabe..."

... and has written an up-to-date Chandler, apparently - I have to admit that I'm usually pretty sceptical about books where authors attempt to resuscitate characters created by others - they are rarely successful (IMO, of course) - though I did love the divisive Wide Sargasso Sea

Anyway - let us know about the Ide/Chandler - who knows?

You also say: And downloaded The High Window just because...

Though not top-notch Chandler, it's still pretty good and well worth a read...

Andy wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Andy wrote: "Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his m..."

Andy - can you clarify?

Was the poop 'already there' and being inspected by the character, for some reason?

Or should it read: "he bent over TO poop...", which is a different matter altogether?

I have read occasional references to powerful men (don't know about women) who would actually hold court whilst 'on the throne' - and not the royal one - presumably as a sign of their power and their contempt for 'ordinary beings'... isn't there some position in the Royal Household (how that deserves CAPITAL LETTERS!) deriving from a position for a minion delegated to pick up the royal poo?

Ha! Got it, thanks to the wonders of Dr Google - the "Groom of the (King's Close) Stool"...
Makes you wonder about entitlement, all that...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_o...

scarletnoir wrote: For racism in LA, no-one covers it better than Mosley in his Easy Rawlins mysteries"

@AB: I've only read "A Little Yellow Dog" by Mosley. On the surface it is "noir",which I'm not really a fan of. But I couldn't agree more.

The best books about racism are showing, the worst are preaching. Mosley is up with the best imo.

It has been a long time since I read Chester Himes. I wish I hadn't given away all the crime novels I read then. Mainly cheaply made paperbacks bought second hand they were already tattered when I read them. The idea I might want to re-read a crime novel never entered my head. Now many of them are classics and I'd love to re-read them :-(

scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Andy wrote: "Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar whil..."

That is a tremedous link - just really enjoyed reading it.

That quote probably needed more context. The particular Poop refers to the deck of the pirate ship.

I am just about to spend some time reviewing it. The reasons I enjoyed it so much are different to a lot of people I think.
Angela Carter always surprises me. This time it was with her bawdy humour - look a bit deeper at it, and like her fairy tales, there is a shrewd feminist slant.
If only we still had her. She would be in her element.

Two from me...

A short book of short stories from QC Fiction, a Quebec publisher from whom I have read several books. To See Out the Night by David Clerson, translated by Katia Grubisic.
I read the first couple of Clerson's stories in bed, and in retrospect, now aware of the subject matter, that probably isn't the best place for them.
The characters that Clerson introduces us to, few other writers would bother with. They are generally struggling to find their place in life, a lonely night shift worker, a homeless person, someone lost in grief, and another, suicidal.
In most cases a transformation awaits, but it is never predictable.
The settings he uses are all in Quebec, but a mixture of the urban and the rural.
For me, the two set deep in the forest are the ones I got most out of, but all, I enjoyed.

QC Fiction is well worth keeping an eye on. I have read several books they have published. They are all very short, quite deep in a philosophical way, and yet usually with short sharp sentences. They are very much quality over qualtity (of pages). And Clerson is a typical example.

And, certainly deserving of its own post..
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter .

I'm going to start by using that quote again..

Every morning, after prayers, the pirate leader removed his black loincloth which was his only garb and bent over the poop in front of the altar while each of his men filed past him in devout silence, kissed his exposed arse and emitted a sharp bark of adulation while slapping his buttocks briefly with the flat of their blades.

Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this. But it is a much reviewed book, dissected by leading literary figures for its philosophy, and compared to Freud even. For me it was much simpler. Contrived though the plot maybe, certain paragraphs, and there are many, just stand out as being outstanding writing. There are many pleasures in reading it, but it is the humour that I particularly enjoyed.

The novel is narrated by Desiderio, who is looking back at his adventures from several years ago, when he single-handedly won a war his unspecified Latin-American country was involved in against the nefarious dictataor, Dr Hoffman. Hoffman's machines have, through holgrams or drug induced hallucinations, meant that the capital city is on its knees, practically defeated, and warped beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

Young Desiderio is implored by the King to undo the world's undoing, and sets out on a quest, to find and destroy Hoffman. What follows are his adventures.

Perhaps not surprising in a world where a character's wish can become real, eroticism is at the forefront. And with a realised fantasy, frequently its darker side emerges. It is clear in places that the work is influenced by De Sade and Pauline Réage's Story of O - two authors who many of us never admit to have read, though we have..
But it is to Carter's huge credit that her interpretation is so much more readable, so much better, with appropriate limits, sufficiently reigned in. It is after all an absurd, but beatiful, novel about sex, written by someone with not only an incredible imagination, but the ability to record it in such a magnificent way.

CCCubbon wrote: "This poem by November31 was written in response this week to Marvell’s The Mower’s Song on Poem of the Week. I thought that it would amuse you as much as it did me.

The Librarian’s Song

I once ha..."


Reminds me of the time the school sent a girl to the library where I was temporarily working and forgot to tell us she was dyslexic!

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The only other LA novel i have read, non-Chandler, was Chester Himes "If He Hollers" (1945)where the prosperous, racist world of wartime LA was evocative..."

That's interesting, AB - ..."

Himes is brilliant in "If He Hollers", its a great novel of the city(LA), the wartime employment boom and the racial divide which was bubbling under. Its a hard edged novel and i really enjoyed it.