What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (3 Viewers)

[Lili Marlene]

yes, probably

http://www.abebooks.com/search/an/Vladimir+Nabokov/sgnd/on/sortby/1

 

[cycling]

check out concious minds

 

[rettucs]

I hate nabokov. I thought Lolita was garbage.

 

[Lili Marlene]

once again, really REALLY good. And once again, her publishers try very hard to push her as some form of chick-lit writer. Things aren't helped by the initial premise and title, young woman running away on her wedding day.....

It kind of rambles along nicely but, um, philosophically it's quite interesting, existential I suppose. Actually I'd be interested in knowing what prompted her to write this book; an urge to write a non-sappy version of a hackneyed story maybe? It would lend itself very easily to crap feminist critiques, a but I really don't think she's trying to get at that

 

[coast to coast]

Got round to reading this on holidays. Ploughed through and when it finished I was gutted that there was not more left. Absolutely brilliant book. One of my favourite yarns ever!

Onto Yiddish Policeman's Union now which is good but not as gripping or pulsating as this. More noir-ish and maybe more stylized as a detectice book. Still good though.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Got round to reading this on holidays. Ploughed through and when it finished I was gutted that there was not more left. Absolutely brilliant book. One of my favourite yarns ever!

that book was about 450 pages too long

 

[jonah]

I'm just starting Man in the Dark, anyone read it?

 

[St. Fechin]

I'm just starting Man in the Dark, anyone read it?

Yeah, I have. It's not great. It contains possibly the worst sentence I've read in any novel. (See if you pick it out!)
Having said that, overall it still has "something".

 

[Lili Marlene]

Pretty weak cover art also, imho

 

[St. Fechin]

Anyway, last night I read most of:

A book about sadness and poetry.
A bit slight, but enjoyable.

(This means I'm now only 20 pages away from having read all of Baker's books, go me!)

I was reading 'The Last September' by Elizabeth Bowen, but it's a hard old slog - so started 'The Anthologist' to get away from it.
I'm pretty sure I read 'TLS' in college, but I'd forgotten almost everything about it:

 

[Lili Marlene]

Tell me about Nicholson Baker St. Fechin. I've never even heard of him but i'm fairly clueless with these things

 

[Jill Hives]

Tell me about Nicholson Baker St. Fechin. I've never even heard of him but i'm fairly clueless with these things

He goes from erotica to children's books. Very bizarre collection of work.

ETA: He is the only writer whilst reading a chapter of one of his books that I threw it on the floor in disgust. I had to put it down because I just couldn't handle it. Then picked it up seconds later to finish the chapter. I had to finish it.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I was reading 'The Last September' by Elizabeth Bowen, but it's a hard old slog - so started 'The Anthologist' to get away from it.

i was reading Passions by Isaac Bashevis Singer last week but I was finding it a drag so I dropped it like a hot stone as soon as Affairs At Hampden Ferrers: An English Romance by Brian Aldiss arrived in the post. Hopefully the rest of my new aldiss novels will arrive tomorrow as I'll be finished this one by then. Anyway, I read a couple of novels by Bashevis Singer (or Singer or whatever) and they were excellent - Satan In Goray and The Slave. The Slave in particular was fantastic. They were both about bogger jews living in hillbilly polish villages some time way in the past and full of jewish superstitions and stuff. Some of the short stories were about new york and high rise apartments in Miami and shit - totally spoiled the buzz.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

He goes from erotica to children's books. Very bizarre collection of work.

sounds interesting, i can see myself checking him out.

 

[St. Fechin]

i was reading Passions by Isaac Bashevis Singer last week but I was finding it a drag so I dropped it like a hot stone as soon as Affairs At Hampden Ferrers: An English Romance by Brian Aldiss arrived in the post. Hopefully the rest of my new aldiss novels will arrive tomorrow as I'll be finished this one by then. Anyway, I read a couple of novels by Bashevis Singer (or Singer or whatever) and they were excellent - Satan In Goray and The Slave. The Slave in particular was fantastic. They were both about bogger jews living in hillbilly polish villages some time way in the past and full of jewish superstitions and stuff. Some of the short stories were about new york and high rise apartments in Miami and shit - totally spoiled the buzz.

Bought a bunch of his stuff recently. Have yet to actually read any.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I saw The Slave on Art Garfunkel's list of favorite books.

 

[St. Fechin]

He goes from erotica to children's books. Very bizarre collection of work.

Erm, not quite.
'Vox' and 'The Fermata' certainly deal with sexual subject matter, but I don't think they could be called 'erotica' to be honest. Is 'Lolita' erotica?

'The Everlasting Story of Nory' isn't a children's book, it's a book written from the perspective of a child.

 

[Lili Marlene]

the dog sex bits in this.....

arguably an erotic childrens novel.



if you're into dogs, like

 

[Lili Marlene]

i'm also stretching the definition of 'erotic' and 'children'



basically that post was 100% a lie.

 

[St. Fechin]

And 'dog' probably.

Baker's best book imo is his first: 'The Mezzanine', so check that out.
It's sort of futile to talk about what I like about him, it's really entirely about his prose style; basically if you like books about more or less nothing, filled with all sorts of offbeat descriptive detail and digression, (often) written in a ultra-pedantic stream-of-conciousness style - you'll like him. ahem.

That's a caricature, but you get the picture (hopefully).
He's the sort of writer who feels he can turn his pen to anything.