tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post4077664041576222246..comments2023-11-22T04:10:49.266-05:00Comments on Dispatches from Zembla: Year in Books - Part 1 (Fiction)Alokhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947383354732747209noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-80213362681808747022008-10-21T03:31:00.000-05:002008-10-21T03:31:00.000-05:00I too, thought the same of Amsterdam by Ian McEwan...I too, thought the same of Amsterdam by Ian McEwan... How?Dunnihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13186560662565557070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-55633554290485453362007-03-28T14:03:00.000-05:002007-03-28T14:03:00.000-05:00Hi Waggish, Glad to see you here. I have followed ...Hi Waggish, Glad to see you here. I have followed your blog and archives with great enthusiasm and admiration. In fact most of my google searches about the writers (Musil, Bachmann etc) I have been reading in the past year invariably make me land up in your blog!<BR/><BR/>I have read Malina and found it extremely baffling and after reading a few bits and pieces from elsewhere rewarding too. I do plan to read some of her other works. Thanks for the suggestion, will look it up.Alokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12947383354732747209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-23538794425837692832007-03-27T13:55:00.000-05:002007-03-27T13:55:00.000-05:00Oh wow, great stuff here. Thanks for the link. I a...Oh wow, great stuff here. Thanks for the link. I also just posted on Aira over at <A HREF="http://www.waggish.org" REL="nofollow">waggish</A>. Good, not great. I agree on Krasznahorkai's conservatism, but it's a conservatism that grows out of post-Communism post-central planning pessimism, not any sort of western conservatism. (Though after 7 years of this radical Bush, they may be converging!) I also adore Bachmann, and recommend starting with the collection "Three Paths to the Lake" as the easiest way into her work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-30130062510498224682006-12-27T14:42:00.000-05:002006-12-27T14:42:00.000-05:00I entirely agree with cheshire on the dogbiography...I entirely agree with cheshire on the dogbiography by Woolf...but the one on Roger Fry is really worth reading. Bachmann is good, but according to my experience she is such an either love it or hate it author...I'm just saying.... <br />cheshire you're a complete book bezerk*https://www.blogger.com/profile/05680450955867041830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-89829472440810864282006-12-27T13:16:00.000-05:002006-12-27T13:16:00.000-05:00Hehe, I didn't know Woolf had written a biography ...Hehe, I didn't know Woolf had written a biography of a dog. sounds wonderful though :)<br /><br />bhupinder <a href="http://bhupindersingh.blogspot.com/2006/12/episode-in-life-of-landscape-painter-by.html">briefly mentioned Cesar Aira </a>too on his blog a few days ago. I hadn't heard of him before...<br /><br />I have heard so much about All About H. Hatter book but I have never seen a copy anywhere!<br /><br />antonia, I am taking a reading break for this year and going to start with bachmann and woolf in the new year. will ask you if i need any help :)Alokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12947383354732747209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-65256624184686545762006-12-27T12:53:00.000-05:002006-12-27T12:53:00.000-05:00Oh, and many thanks for the link to the list at Re...Oh, and many thanks for the link to the list at ReadySteadyBook. Some intriguing writers there who I can't remember having heard of before: Peter Larkin, Cesar Aira. And it's wonderful, and wonderfully appropriate, that Julian Rios is such a huge fan of the work of G.V.Desani.Cheshire Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463645065346922684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-74417599438607482682006-12-27T11:30:00.000-05:002006-12-27T11:30:00.000-05:00I have a friend who swears by Bachmann, I haven't ...I have a friend who swears by Bachmann, I haven't read her though. And you surely can't go wrong with Woolf, as long as you stay away from her biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog...Cheshire Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463645065346922684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-40040359138268944532006-12-27T10:47:00.000-05:002006-12-27T10:47:00.000-05:00correction, Virginia Woolf's style is entirely dif...correction, Virginia Woolf's style is entirely different, gloom factor varies...*https://www.blogger.com/profile/05680450955867041830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-30339983863038024722006-12-27T10:46:00.000-05:002006-12-27T10:46:00.000-05:00hi alok - as I was reading your list I thought one...hi alok - as I was reading your list I thought one Bernhard a year is a good New Year's Resolution...<br />I agree Janet Frame is really quite gloomy, read her Owls book some years ago. <br />Malina also hasn't such an enjoyable outlook on life. Virginia Woolf entirely different....*https://www.blogger.com/profile/05680450955867041830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-33716309290236604832006-12-27T10:33:00.000-05:002006-12-27T10:33:00.000-05:00He isn't really an anti-capitalist. He is more of ...He isn't really an anti-capitalist. He is more of a conservative in the older, classical sense -- that of Edmund Burke, Hobbes, even Kafka and Dostoevsky if you think of literature. But he gives his conservatism a tragic and pessimistic spin. God is long dead and human beings can't do without authority, disorder and chaos are the natural conditions of the world, revolution and nihilistic destruction are one and the same etc etc..<br /><br />I haven't heard of these two writers that you mention. I have got Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina, another Austrian, on my next to-read list. I have to read Virginia Woolf too. I have read only Mrs Dalloway that too without understanding much and long back.Alokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12947383354732747209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-34141726958365727192006-12-27T09:37:00.000-05:002006-12-27T09:37:00.000-05:00I am baffled by how violently anti-capitalistic mo...I am baffled by how violently anti-capitalistic most writers and intellectuals tend to be, despite the lessons of history. Writers, at least, have no more than a diagnostic responsibility, and indeed they pretend to nothing more; the "intellectuals" have a lot to answer for...<br /><br />Neither do I read women novelists much (but parity does pertain to the situation in poetry). The darkest novel I have ever read is Janet Frame's "Yellow Flowers in an Antipodean Room"; Beckett and Bernhard brim with positivity, in comparison. <br /><br />And I have new-formed designs on the work of Magdalena Tulli.Cheshire Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463645065346922684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-14581143893579110782006-12-26T22:46:00.000-05:002006-12-26T22:46:00.000-05:00Oh I haven't seen it myself yet. let me check.Oh I haven't seen it myself yet. let me check.Alokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12947383354732747209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-52156540177454653202006-12-26T22:44:00.000-05:002006-12-26T22:44:00.000-05:00Thanks for the Laszlo K official website link.Love...Thanks for the Laszlo K official website link.Loved the Gone berserk in paradise pdf there.Vidya Jayaramanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11878238708389655574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-37450334894059274942006-12-26T16:49:00.000-05:002006-12-26T16:49:00.000-05:00I was extremely impressed by melancholy of resista...I was extremely impressed by melancholy of resistance. The way he connects his extreme political pessimism with dense philosophical ideas about nihilism, Godlessness and anarchy is absolutely riveting. It is also I think, besides the things you mentioned, a violently allegorical tale about the recent history of eastern europe and russia...how the collapse of communism and the onset of capitalism meant loot and anarchy rather than freedom and stability for most of the people... how decades of forced collectivization perverted how people see themselves and the state. Satantango (the movie) is also about the same thing more or less. I hope someone is working to bring it in English too.<br /><br />Memento Mori sounds good. Will check out. I am planning to read more women writers in the new year :) Actually Jean Brodie was also interesting though perhaps I think I was expecting something different...Alokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12947383354732747209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12674755.post-5415121385765993052006-12-26T15:49:00.000-05:002006-12-26T15:49:00.000-05:00So many raves about Krasznahorkai, I should get "T...So many raves about Krasznahorkai, I should get "The Melancholy of Resistance". From what I've read by him and about him, he seems a writer out of his time, uncomfortable in the modern world... The Hapsburgs after World War I, or 2006 - always something is going out of fashion, something is collapsing.<br /><br />You should give Spark another try - she's a writer of great wit and originality. A book like "Memento Mori" fits perfectly with your preoccupations as described in the last post...Cheshire Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463645065346922684noreply@blogger.com