Fiction

[Blythe]

Thanks madupont and barton, I'm saving the New Yorker link for when I finish the book.  I'm reading in-between as it's an odd combination of boring and gruesome.  

Early in the week I finished Stieg Larsson's trilogy.  
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who played With Fire and
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

What a story teller Larsson was.  I can't recommend them highly enough.

I'm almost finished Armistead Maupin's The Night Listener, this is the first of his stories I've read, and am thoroughly enjoying it.  
I've started Count Belisarius by Robert Graves as well.  

[knoxharrington]

I admire those who take on Bolano, having a wordcount phobia myself.  It's not like I insist everyone be Raymond Carver, but conciseness and tight editing really turn me on, in this era of word bloat.  This theory may be a little out there, but I feel strongly that David Foster Wallace might have lived longer if he hadn't written that sci-fi thing that was 1100 pages, with footnotes.   Or one could just as well argue he would have ended his life sooner, had he not had such a magnum opus to keep him busy.

Haven't heard of Larsson.  Are these stories set in Scandinavia?  Contemporary or historical?  OK, I'll shut up and go google this person.  Thanks for recommending.

[Blythe]

I suppose you've already googled, but here is the wiki article in any case.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieg_Larsson and one to a personal site.  http://www.stieglarsson.com/

It seems he had a draft of sorts for a 4th already, and outlines for numbers 5, 6 and 7, I believe.  Trouble is, due to leaving no will, and not being married to his long time partner, it looks like a dead end.  Really a shame, there are so many avenues at the end of #3, it boggles the mind. 

Re 2666, all I can say is that to me it seems as though Bolano is being purposeful in his unrelenting recounting of the crimes in part 4, he wants the reader to figuratively drown in his words, in the deeds, and in the callousness of not only the police, but everyone that hears of the crimes.  It seems to me at this point, one third of the way through part 4, that callousness and eventual indifference to the fates of the victims is the uniting factor of the book, and the point that Bolano is really attempting to make regarding humans and the world in general.  Maybe it had to do with his own political background, or the fact that he knew he was dying, but he certainly viewed the world with a jaundiced eye.

[madupont]

RainTaxi Online Edition  Winter 2009/2010

          the last interview of Roberto Bolaño,

 Robert BolaÑo:
 The Last Interview

 & Other Conversations

 translated by Sybil Perez

 Melville House Publishing ($14.95)



I think, they print their review at the Twin Cities of StPaul and Minneapolis,MN

Mark Terrill did the review on this book.

[nnyhav]

Finally, a clunker from Bolaño, if only a short story, in this week's NYer.
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/02/08/100208fi_fiction_bolano
I was beginning to think he could do no wrong, leastwise in fiction. (I've passed on his poetry and the skinny interviews ...

[madupont]

nnyhav,

I haven't read it yet but he is kind of upstaged by J.D. Salinger.  I recommend waiting at least fifty years on rereads, time clears your head,and then you discover what you read was "life affirming", making it possible to live until you are 91.

[weezo]

Thinking back, not so far as that, this reminder serves to give thought again to the Polanski fall from grace by a similar personality in the female flesh, a predator whose mother declared her the victim to save face.

Seems that you are admitting extreme jealousy that you were not as "favored" by the glitteratti as that girl was. A teenage girl raped by a middle-aged man is not a "victim" because her mother said so, but because the dumb jerk of a man didn't know how to keep his pants zipped. Raping a girl is no gift to her, and not a crime that should be dismissed.

[madupont]

What girl? Do you know what you are talking about?

I was comparing two predatory mothers who sent their daughters out on a mission.  You tell me what is your difference between "predatory" and stalking an underage victim on the internet.  Just because you are not a man, does not excuse your phony-baloney act that you put on to hide the facts.

You have a vivid imagination and a misused mouth on you. The things you say about some "dumb jerk of a man" goes on with cliches such as,"didn't know how to keep his pants zipped". Not an original thought in the bag.  Your choice of playmates being underaged somehow validates your proclaimed  "profession". I understand that one of the erstwhile members here considered that what was sought was your union identification? Someone from the other forums assisted the mother on how to defend her child from you.

Oh,nuts, I'm late for the news, why bother with you.

[Lhoffman]

Came in today's mail.   Skimming through, both look pretty good.

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/bolanor/monsieur.htm

http://www.listal.com/book/wench-a-novel-dolen-perkinsvaldez

[Lhoffman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/books/11faulkner.html?em

[madupont]

“obsession with the ways in which slavery has disfigured the lives of both the slaves and their masters?” she asked.

That obsession still figures preponderantly in the continuing testament of the tea-bagging, particularly the Southern, Republicans who have kept themselves aloof from Black Americans because of Southern White traditions that former Democrats carried with them whole cloth in their abandonment of the party to become the Republican National Party.

I don't usually find it amusing that they have such atrocious Southern manners as White Southerners in Congress or even displaced White traditionalist Southerners resettled in the White confines of the US. But, last night or the early a.m. while reading the nytimes.com, I came across an amusing account and I will have to back track it as to whose column it was in exactly explaining that Mrs. Sanders, the wife of the politician who took a leave of absence without leave, to "take a hike on the Appalachian trail" but showed up in South America and wrote his tamer version of "purple prose" to his new mistress, didn't leave out a whit of her husband's sexual escapades abroad in the new book that she has written and that is  now published. ( you might want to look up that account as well as the above nytimes.com "account" with the Faulkner legacy which many of us already know from the performance of Odetta Holmes in Sanctuary, with Lee Remick and Ives Montand)  In any case, Mrs. Sanders only left out, according to the nytimes.com columnist that her Southern husband did the proverbial thing  very similar to Congressman Shelby had done that got him into trouble this week.

Sanders neglected to say that he charged all his expenses for his "hike" to South America and costs for entertaining his paramour there to the tax-payers of his home state. Now that was "masterful".  If only these s.o.b.'s  refrained and did less to disfigure the lives of contemporary Black Americans who are their constituents, the better off this country would be in avoiding the inevitable blow-back.

They might have to accept the institution of a new category wherein I declare the d.o.b.'s who have done as much under-handed meddling in their social climbing as the D.A.R.

[madupont]

Chicago Tribune, this morning....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-ap-as-australia-rowling-lawsuit,0,7349822.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chicagotribune%2Fentertainment+%28Chicago+Tribune+news+-+Entertainment%29&flv=

Author JK Rowling accused in lawsuit of stealing ideas for "Harry Potter" books

(get it while it is hot, because I might move it elsewhere)

[Blythe]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/books/11faulkner.html?em

Interesting article Lhoffman.  I've still only read Absalom, Absalom! of WF's, and truly look forward to reading the rest.  I particularly appreciated this....

Scholars found Faulkner’s decision to give his white characters the names of slaves particularly arresting. Professor Wolff-King said she believes he was “trying to recreate the slaves lives and give them a voice.”

[nytempsperdu]

I'm just beginning Kingsolver's The Lacuna and wondered if anyone else has/will be reading it and is interested in a read-along or discussion.  (If the forum doesn't explode as a result of mentioning the above author, we know the NYT curse is broken)

[Donotremove]

Nytemps, I can't read the new Kingsolver book right now but I'm going to. Will be grateful for any comments by those who will be reading it. Never mind if there are spoilers. I'm okay with that.