tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post4233840987101863901..comments2024-03-20T19:40:58.078-05:00Comments on The OF Blog: Alternating between eight books and not to the halfway point of any yetLarry Nolenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001420558511460998noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-54111070548804461772011-01-17T23:03:01.258-06:002011-01-17T23:03:01.258-06:00I have word from credible sources that your name r...I have word from credible sources that your name really is Harry or, shall I say, Hairy. Larry is just your code name, given to you by the shadow council of a secret society of violent-minded squirrels. Admit it!<br /><br />You are little more than an acorn, thrown upon the playing board... small, insignificant, and ignored by the real players. You bide your time as they move to and fro, unaware that you are secretly laying down roots, an insidious foundation, for their eventual fall.<br /><br />Your furry masters watch on, nodding in approval. They salivate, thirsty for the taste of human blood, craving nuts and flesh, and the collapse of all humanity. The shadow council sits in the dark, growing fat off the human babies their minions steal from the crib as a delicacy, and they laugh... they laugh high and loud... for all the things they have done and all the things they have planned.<br /><br />And you, Hairy, you... you are their creature and a traitor to your people. You would help them to achieve their goals, to bring atrocity upon us.<br /><br />Admit it... admit it!Anonymoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-70652919774901181092011-01-17T09:40:31.243-06:002011-01-17T09:40:31.243-06:00WANT.
Thanks! :DWANT.<br /><br />Thanks! :DLarry Nolenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16001420558511460998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-12684289609470054562011-01-17T09:14:01.090-06:002011-01-17T09:14:01.090-06:00Some further suggestions:
German
Adalbert Stifte...Some further suggestions:<br /><br />German<br /><br /><b>Adalbert Stifter - Bunte Steine</b><br /><br />(a collection of six short stories named after different types of rock, my favorite is the "darker" one, Tormalin)<br /><br /><b>Georg Büchner - Lenz</b><br /><br />(a novella about the descent into schizophrenia of minor poet/playwright Jakob Lenz, anticipated aspects of Expressionism and Modernism and inspired Thomas Bernhard)<br /><br /><b>Theodor Fontane - Effi Briest</b><br /><br />(a story of adultery that usually gets compared to Madame Bovary, but approach and thematic concerns are very different) <br /><br />French<br /><br /><b>Dominique Vivant, Point de Lendemain</b><br /><br />(several bloggers praised to high heavens "No Tomorrow", the NYRB English translation, so I looked up the original novella and found the online version on Wikisource.Fr. Very elegant erotic story somewhat reminiscent of Les Liasons Dangereuses)<br /><br />Italian<br /><br /><b>Tommaso Landolfi - La pietra lunare, Il mar delle blatte e altre storie, Cancroregina </b><br /><br />Landolfi was already "New Weird" in the 30s-50s. <br />Goes from the "heightened real" (in which slanted perception gives a grotesque quality to ordinary happenings) to the outright surreal and nightmarish. <br />To give you some coordinates, he read and admired Poe and the French symbolists and translated Gogol and Von Hoffmansthal.<br /><br /><br /><b>Carlo Emilio Gadda - Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana</b><br /><br />Perhaps the greatest modern Italian novel, and the effortless way in which Gadda alternates between dialects, registers and varieties of speech without compromising the overall intelligibility makes it one of the most impressive feats of liguistic virtuosity in any language.<br /><br /><b>Giorgio Manganelli - Centuria</b><br /><br />A hundred condensed, one-page novels from the major exponent of the Italian Avant-Garde of the 60s-70s. Somewhere between Calvino, Borges and American postmodernists like Barth, Coover or Barthelme.marconoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-36321493602239546622011-01-17T06:11:30.362-06:002011-01-17T06:11:30.362-06:00Good thing my name is Larry.Good thing my name is Larry.Larry Nolenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16001420558511460998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-28595144251126290112011-01-17T05:40:13.632-06:002011-01-17T05:40:13.632-06:00Pat would have finished all these books ages ago. ...Pat would have finished all these books ages ago. He's a reading BEAST. He could read your ass under the table, Harry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-18715440620145472992011-01-16T22:40:20.545-06:002011-01-16T22:40:20.545-06:00The German will be for later in the year, I think....The German will be for later in the year, I think. I do have a Serbian review I need to do, since there's this one author I'd like to review in depth in the next couple of months, probably March or April (as I'm leaning toward February being Twain Month here at this blog). But I'll certainly consider those, since I'm a fan on Mann's work in translation.Larry Nolenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16001420558511460998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-67375374646067043952011-01-16T22:18:12.995-06:002011-01-16T22:18:12.995-06:00Hey, you should first polish up your German. *grin...Hey, you should first polish up your German. *grin*<br /><br />Here are some suggestions:<br /><br />Thomas Mann, Die Buddenbrooks<br />Theodor Storm, Der Schimmelreiter<br />Siegfried Lenz, Die Deutschstunde<br />Peter Bamm, Die unsichtbare Flagge<br />Joachim Fernau, Rosen für Apoll<br />Günter Grass, Im Krebsgang<br /><br />Except maybe for <i>Die Buddenbrooks</i> (which is still Thomas Mann's easiest to read novel), they should prove not too difficult - esp. compared to the Schiller you recently bought.Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-19855363976912018952011-01-16T12:05:56.839-06:002011-01-16T12:05:56.839-06:00I absolutely love Browning. I was personally won o...I absolutely love Browning. I was personally won over by "Caliban Upon Setebos", and the super-creepy but -romantic "Evelyn Hope". Do read at least some of "The Ring and the Book". Have fun!Jasonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-51660126311455815632011-01-16T11:30:22.219-06:002011-01-16T11:30:22.219-06:00Give me time! I do have several books which I mig...Give me time! I do have several books which I might use shortly to restart my learning of Attic Greek. As for the Russian, that comes after I master Serbian, so maybe 1-2 years from now? :P<br /><br />Speaking of Flaubert's characters, Emma certainly reminds me unfavorably of bovine qualities as I'm re-reading this. I haven't read <i>Salammbo</i> and it's been at least 13 years since I read <i>Sentimental Education</i> (although I have a copy of it in French now as well), but I think my favorite Flaubert is <i>The Temptation of St. Anthony</i>, which I reviewed a couple of years ago on this blog.Larry Nolenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16001420558511460998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-5739935527834292942011-01-16T09:51:21.574-06:002011-01-16T09:51:21.574-06:00It's a pity Flaubert only wrote about stupid c...It's a pity Flaubert only wrote about stupid characters. I prefer Sentimental Education to Bovary (the structure of the novel is astounding - more so for the 19th century) : my urge to slap Emma always marred my appreciation of the prose. So much for my litterary critic ! <br />As a matter of fact, the only book of Flaubert I actually liked was Salammbo : not in the same category of masterpiece but I could read it without getting irritated with the characters.Hélènenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8068873.post-51516138213537705952011-01-16T08:16:43.786-06:002011-01-16T08:16:43.786-06:00What you're not reading Plato in the original ...What you're not reading Plato in the original Greek and Father and Sons in the original Russian!Erichttp://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com