What book are you reading?

I saw a documentary on the Brontë sisters a few months ago and found their lives fascinating. Despite Emily and Charlotte writing classics, and Anne also writing a respected novel, I had never gotten around to reading their works. They had amazing childhoods of writing imaginative stories, and all died very young, with contaminated water supplying their family home and community speculated as a contributing factor.
That sounds so interesting! I’m going to have to search around now!
I decided to read Emily's Wuthering Heights, which had its genesis in a childhood story she wrote, as I found her imagination the most interesting. While I enjoyed her writing and really respected her talent and insights, the themes and story were not innately gripping for me, and I did skim here and there. Not sure if I'll get around to Jane Eyre, but I read a brief literary analysis of it.
You must read Jane Eyre. It is stupendous!

I also wanted to say that I LOVE Daphne du Maurier. I believe The Scapegoat and Frenchman’s Creek were the best as far as I felt, but, looking at them now, (I have six others), I’m trying to jog my memory on most but failing miserably! I just remember being extremely impressed with her writing.

I also know I need to engage myself in this thread and read what you interesting folks have to say!
 
That sounds so interesting! I’m going to have to search around now!

You must read Jane Eyre. It is stupendous!

I also wanted to say that I LOVE Daphne du Maurier. I believe The Scapegoat and Frenchman’s Creek were the best as far as I felt, but, looking at them now, (I have six others), I’m trying to jog my memory on most but failing miserably! I just remember being extremely impressed with her writing.

I also know I need to engage myself in this thread and read what you interesting folks have to say!
What are your thoughts on Don't Look Now?
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
The Pleasure of My Company, Steve Martin

Well, my wife and I were at a thrift store today because the mosquito/pest control guy was at our house spraying noxious fumes.
Anyway I felt I had to buy a book- for something to do until it was safe to return.

I almost bought a non-fiction, The Age of Unreason, about US citizens ever increasing disenchantment with reality, but I figured,
I didn't need a book for that. Eventually I settled on The Pleasure of My Company, by Steve Martin about the narrator, a reclusive,
obsessive-compulsive nice guy- mistakenly accused of murder. Here is a short bit where he describes a typical home session
with his student-therapist.

If I told her that I planned to call my mother with the new phone card, she remembers to ask how the call went. Problematic for me,
because when I say I am going to call my mother I am lying, as my mother has been dead-- is it six years now? Problematic for her,
because Clarissa knows my mother is dead and feels she has to humor me. I know I am lying and not fooling her, and she thinks
I'm crazy and fooling myself. I like this little fib because it connects us at a much deeper level than hello.

So, anyway much of the book (so far I'm just on page 20) is about our being presented examples of "ordinary" life as interpreted through the
skewed interpretation of the slightly "off" narrator, Daniel Pecan Cambridge. If you like the above paragraph- you may like this book.
If you think the fragment is contrived, and a bit boring- well I know where you can pick up a copy of The Age of Unreason- cheap.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
We have created the world which will be our prison (a quote from Bagumbawalla's 91 volume work, Philosophy made simple).


Well, I finished The Pleasure of My Company (see above) and have mixed feelings.

This book by Steve Martin falls into the sort of work that I usually enjoy more than any other. It is a "novel of overcoming and becoming".
The two things most difficult to overcome seem to be-- society and ourselves.

The movie, Groundhog Day, is a clever film that that follows a similar plotline. A man is some way is at odds with himself and
society. During the course of reliving the same day over the course of 30- some? years the protagonist grows into a better human being,
"overcomes" himself and by doing so- becomes himself.

In another movie, Pleasantville, a brother and sister are projected into a television show (Think something like Leave it to Beaver) that
represents the "quicksand" of societies restrictive morals and mores. Slowly they begin to change the TV world by introducing new ideas.
They also change themselves.

And so, Martin's novel/novella is about a man pushed, crushed, confined by childhood family (obsessive-compulsive disorder) dynamics into a
reclusive caricature- longing for something more-- wanting some way out-- needing a way to save himself from history and himself.

Martin's novel, in a way, resembles The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, in that both novels have "unreliable" narrators
with mental issues. The thing about The Pleasure of My Company, however is that the characters seem fairly one-dimensional, changes come too easy. Maybe
Daniel Pecan Cambridge (the narrator) sees people and life that way, and we just accept his viewpoint. Who knows, maybe all the events are imagined, maybe
Martin just expects us to accept the characters, as written, and not expect any real depth-- I don't know. It's a problem.
Because of all that lack of depth the ending was implausible, a cartoon character ending that sort of negates everything previous in the novel.

What is good about TPOMC is the quirky observations and clever "bits" derived from a persona who sees things differently.
During one passage Danial decides he must begin speaking without using words with the letter "e".

Does that make it a worthwhile read?
Don't know- that's why my feelings are mixed.
 
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Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
After my months of committing to finish WH, I am free now.

Last Sunday I bought 6 books at the Feria del Libro at Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where I live.
Those are the following:

Los casos del comisario CroceRicardo Piglia
Las cartas del Boom (The Correspondence of the -Latin American- Boom)Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa
Izquierda no es woke (Left Is Not Woke)Susan Neiman
El mundo entoncesMartín Caparrós
SarmientoMartín Caparrós
Capital e ideología (Capital and Ideology)Thomas Piketty

I am travelling to Buenos Aires, so I plan to buy more books.
 
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Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Well, I just finished Civilization and its Discontents (Freud), first published in 1930.
I was kind of expecting something different- like an overview of civilization in it different
forms, but really it was more about describing civilization, culture, society, religion as neurosis.

In a brief discussion of religion Freud mentions a friend who suggests that the impulse
for religion comes from an inner experience of a feeling or sensation of "eternity"- a oceanic feeling of
something unlimited, unbounded that we all possess.

Freud claims he never had those feelings and looks to psycho-analytic research for explanation-
when what he describes as the "primary ego feeling" from the early days of development
when the ego is undifferentiated from the external world..

Bagumbawalla, on the other hand, believes religion derives from the same roots as our ability to recognize
symbolic meanings and purpose in spoken sounds and written markings.

Anyway, about halfway through the book I am beginning to suspect that the various things Freud is describing are
basically just everyday things to which he has attached his own analytical explanations. And sure enough, Chapter VI
begins- "Never before in any of my previous writings have I had the feeling so strongly as I have now that
what I am describing is common knowledge."

And so, the fairly obvious conclusion, that we suspected all along, is that civilization is an artificial construction that
(just as with groups of animals/insects...) aids with survival but requires the sacrifice of some aspects of individuality.

Though we do get a smattering of Freudian terminology, the book is a fairly easy read (144 pages) and worthwhile,
if for no other reason than to get a feeling for the beginnings of psychology.
 
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I agree. In my opinion the book's main literary point is irony. At first the husband believed himself the more well adjusted and sees his wife as needing to benefit
from a vacation. Toward the end, the wife almost instantly takes charge and becomes the stronger of the two when their son is taken to a hospital.
It is the husband who then becomes abstracted with mental issues. And, yes again, the movie seems to have patched up many weaknesses in the "novel". I will keep
an eye out for the movie.
@Bagumbawalla: Don't Look Now is currently available to watch on Kanopy


If your library has subscribed you should be able to watch it for free.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Well, did you ever read something, or look something up, and come upon a bit of information,
that leads you elsewhere, that leads you elsewhere, again, in a sort of goose-chase of ideas.

Well, I was reading Freud's Civilization and its Discontents- which led me to go back and reread parts of
Erich Fromm's The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness where he mentions a guy named Richard
Maurice Bucke who wrote a book called Cosmic Consciousness (1901). So I looked that up, and it seems interesting,
and is available on the Internet Archive.

PART I.

FIRST WORDS.

I.

What is Cosmic Consciousness? The present volume is an attempt to answer this question ; but notwithstanding it seems well to make a short prefatory statement in as plain language as possible so as to open the door, as it were, for the more elaborate exposition to be attempted in the body of the work. Cosmic Conciousness, then, is a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man. This last is called Self Consciousness and is that faculty upon which rests all of our life (both subjective and objective) which is not common to us and the higher animals, except that small part of it which is derived from the few individuals who have had the higher consciousness above named. To make the matter clear it must be understood that there are three forms or grades of consciousness, (i) Simple Consciousness, which is possessed by say the upper half of the animal kingdom. By means of this faculty a dog or a horse is just as conscious of the things about him as a man is ; he is also conscious of his own limbs and body and he knows that these are a part of himself. (2) Over and above this Simple Consciousness, which is possessed by man as by animals, man has another which is called Self Consciousness. By virtue of this faculty man is not only conscious of trees, rocks, waters, his own limbs and body, but he becomes conscious of himself as a distinct entity apart from all the rest of the universe. It is as good as certain that no animal can realize himself in that way. Further, by means of self consciousness, man (who knows as the animal knows) becomes capable of treating his own mental states as objects of consciousness. The animal is, as it were, immersed in his consciousness as a fish in the sea; he cannot, even in imagination, get outside of it for one moment so as to realize it. But man by virtue of self consciousness can step aside, as it were, from himself and think : “Yes, that thought that I had about that matter is true ; I know it is true and I know that I know it is true.” The writer has been asked : “How do you know that animals cannot think in the same manner?” The answer is simple and conclusive— it is : There is no evidence that any animal can so think, but if they could we should soon know it. Between two creatures living together, as dogs or horses and men, and each self conscious, it would be the simplest

So far I have read only the first page, but it has a promising feel to it.
Meanwhile back to Fromm.
 
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Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Well I seldom have an urgent desire to read some specific book- rather
I let chance become an element in the choosing.

Finally went out to the thrift shops. It has been hot (around 112-115) here lately- discouraging leaving the house.
Found a few rather random books.

Two books from a series called The Detective Book Club, full of famous writers from around the 1950s.

A copy of Kipling's Just So Stories. Never read Kipling- yet.

Walden, by Thoreau. Pretty sure I read this in high school, but for a dollar I couldn't resist.

And a book called Total Tennis by M. Barrie Richmond M. D.- more about the mental aspects of the game.

I am Just about finished with a book by Erich Fromm- I am on the chapter where he does a psychological analysis
of Adolph H's life. Oddly his life seems (up to a point) very similar to that of Branwell Bronte. I guess
this sort of analysis works best "after the fact".
 

Bartelby

Bionic Poster
Your expectation is due to a bad translation. The title is "Das Unbehagen in der Kultur' in German. This is, perhaps, "Unease with the Constraints of Culture".

Well, I just finished Civilization and its Discontents (Freud), first published in 1930.
I was kind of expecting something different- like an overview of civilization in it different
forms, but really it was more about describing civilization, culture, society, religion as neurosis.

In a brief discussion of religion Freud mentions a friend who suggests that the impulse
for religion comes from an inner experience of a feeling or sensation of "eternity"- a oceanic feeling of
something unlimited, unbounded that we all possess.

Freud claims he never had those feelings and looks to psycho-analytic research for explanation-
when what he describes as the "primary ego feeling" from the early days of development
when the ego is undifferentiated from the external world..

Bagumbawalla, on the other hand, believes religion derives from the same roots as our ability to recognize
symbolic meanings and purpose in spoken sounds and written markings.

Anyway, about halfway through the book I am beginning to suspect that the various things Freud is describing are
basically just everyday things to which he has attached his own analytical explanations. And sure enough, Chapter VI
begins- "Never before in any of my previous writings have I had the feeling so strongly as I have now that
what I am describing is common knowledge."

And so, the fairly obvious conclusion, that we suspected all along, is that civilization is an artificial construction that
(just as with groups of animals/insects...) aids with survival but requires the sacrifice of some aspects of individuality.

Though we do get a smattering of Freudian terminology, the book is a fairly easy read (144 pages) and worthwhile,
if for no other reason than to get a feeling for the beginnings of psychology.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Your expectation is due to a bad translation. The title is "Das Unbehagen in der Kultur' in German. This is, perhaps, "Unease with the Constraints of Culture".
Yes, I have noticed in other readings that the translation can make a big difference.
I did take a couple semesters of German in High School, but unless it involves directions to the train station...
 
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Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum; fifth book in The Adventure Library series. In 1895 a haplass Slocum who, after experiencing several failed voyages in the past, some jail time, the death of his first wife and the failure of his second marriage, decided he would set sail in a solo 'round-the-world voyage. He set off in a boat he built himself called the Spray. I am only on chapter 7 and it's a miracle that he is still alive. Slocum continually faces danger on the open seas as important items wash off the deck of his ship and he nearly capsizes in storms, etc. The book reads a bit like Walden as Slocum is alone on the boat describing how he spends his day and reflecting on life, etc. It's not particularly exciting, but it is sometimes (unintentionally?) funny. He seems completely unprepared and unskilled and at the same time the luckiest person on earth to have survived so far...
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
As anounced in my books purchases above, now I am reading this one:

(The Correspondence of the -Latin American- Boom)Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa

It's a collection of letters exchanged between these writers (actually the ones that could be kept).
These were personal friends in the 60’s, and currently, only Vargas Llosa (the younger of them) is alive. To locate them in time: Cortázar (1914-1984), García Márquez (1927-2014), Fuentes (1928-2012), and Vargas Llosa (1936-).
There is a general consensus that those were the major exponents of the Latin American Boom.
It's interesting to see how they shared their books before publishing them, and how they supported reading and commenting each other's works.
 
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vive le beau jeu !

Talk Tennis Guru
Jean Pasqualini (Bào Ruòwàng) - Prisoner of Mao
(very interesting!)

71ZFk0pZRSL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

People sometimes watch the movie so that they don't have to read the book but I went one step beyond and watched the music video so that I don't have to read the book

You definitely like to cut corners.
i guess some people will just read your post instead of watching the clip... :unsure:
(but they'll miss a good song!)
 
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In the summertime when lighter reading is desired, many turn to a “beach read.” I have tried this several times in the past only to be disappointed with poor writing and insipid storylines. To remedy this situation, I turn to well-written children’s books. The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's) is such a book. Aimed at readers grades 3-7, this imaginative book features a dog named Johannes as the protagonist. Johannes is a free dog who lives in a park and serves as the “eyes” for the bison who also live in the park, but behind fencing. Johannes runs through the park surveying all around him reporting back to the bison all the while trying to avoid getting caught by humans who also frequent the park. Unfortunately, Johannes eventually does get caught:

“I felt a tug on my neck. I have never worn a leash, but right away my mind said leash. I turned around and saw the legs of a man. They were covered by green pants, and the green pants were covered in mud.​
“I was now kept. While looking at the picture, thinking of other worlds, I’d lost my freedom in this one.​
“As we walked, I thought and planned. My mind was in a swirly state, though. I have swum in the gray ocean and more than twice was tossed in the cruelty of a crashing wave, rolling in the white, the shushing, the close-to-oblivion. My mind was like that now.”​

After scheming and plotting the other animals in the park hatch a plan to set Johannes free. Cleverly illustrated by Shawn Harris, this 2024 Newberry award winning book is a great choice as a gift for any child and a fine diversion for readers of any age.
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
In the summertime when lighter reading is desired, many turn to a “beach read.” I have tried this several times in the past only to be disappointed with poor writing and insipid storylines. To remedy this situation, I turn to well-written children’s books. The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's) is such a book. Aimed at readers grades 3-7, this imaginative book features a dog named Johannes as the protagonist. Johannes is a free dog who lives in a park and serves as the “eyes” for the bison who also live in the park, but behind fencing. Johannes runs through the park surveying all around him reporting back to the bison all the while trying to avoid getting caught by humans who also frequent the park. Unfortunately, Johannes eventually does get caught:

“I felt a tug on my neck. I have never worn a leash, but right away my mind said leash. I turned around and saw the legs of a man. They were covered by green pants, and the green pants were covered in mud.​
“I was now kept. While looking at the picture, thinking of other worlds, I’d lost my freedom in this one.​
“As we walked, I thought and planned. My mind was in a swirly state, though. I have swum in the gray ocean and more than twice was tossed in the cruelty of a crashing wave, rolling in the white, the shushing, the close-to-oblivion. My mind was like that now.”​

After scheming and plotting the other animals in the park hatch a plan to set Johannes free. Cleverly illustrated by Shawn Harris, this 2024 Newberry award winning book is a great choice as a gift for any child and a fine diversion for readers of any age.
I can't read on the beach.
Too many distractions.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
I too have been looking for something simple, yet well written, to pass the time.
I started reading from a couple volumes of The Detectives Book Club I picked
up at a thrift shop. Basically it has been a negative experience. Started reading
something called Murder is Served by Frances and Richard Lockridge, a husband/wife writing
team. It is extremely repetitive, rehashing the same poorly presented bits of information- which are
eventually brought to the attention of a husband/wife team who are not detectives,
but everyone thinks they are. When I started to count the remaining pages, I tossed the book.
I blame it all on Borges. Recently I read his critique of detective mysteries- and I have become less tolerant.

So, I skipped to another novel, by Agatha Christie, Three Blind Mice, it was a little better, but involved too
many improbabilities. Also (by Christie) I read The Witness for the Prosecution (short story), fortunately
short. I recall there was a movie version.

My first thought was to find a Book by Ben Hecht, a solid writer, that I had been meaning to read-
and that I knew was around somewhere. Instead I found Birthday, By Dorothea Tanning (the artist)-
an autobiography about her life with Max Ernst. The Dada/Surreal period is my favorite.
If I could go back in time, like in the movie, Midnight in Paris, that's where I would be.
 
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) directed by Billy Wilder is an outstanding film. For whatever reason, I totally missed that it was based on an Agatha Christie book - which obviously, I have never read.

As far as simple but well-written, I recently finished all seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. If you have never read it, I would strongly suggest putting it on your "Simple, but Well-written" list. The Last Battle (volume 7) just blew me away. Whenever you want substantial but easy reading, you could just pick up a volume and eventually you would get through the entire series. Even though not all volumes are as great as the first (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) or the last, overall, you would not be dissapointed.

A few easy reads I've been thinking of (In case anyone wants to start an impromptu book club:

The Murder of Roger Akroyd - Agatha Christie
The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

As always, I am open to other ideas.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
In the summertime when lighter reading is desired, many turn to a “beach read.” I have tried this several times in the past only to be disappointed with poor writing and insipid storylines. To remedy this situation, I turn to well-written children’s books. The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's) is such a book. Aimed at readers grades 3-7, this imaginative book features a dog named Johannes as the protagonist. Johannes is a free dog who lives in a park and serves as the “eyes” for the bison who also live in the park, but behind fencing. Johannes runs through the park surveying all around him reporting back to the bison all the while trying to avoid getting caught by humans who also frequent the park. Unfortunately, Johannes eventually does get caught:

“I felt a tug on my neck. I have never worn a leash, but right away my mind said leash. I turned around and saw the legs of a man. They were covered by green pants, and the green pants were covered in mud.​
“I was now kept. While looking at the picture, thinking of other worlds, I’d lost my freedom in this one.​
“As we walked, I thought and planned. My mind was in a swirly state, though. I have swum in the gray ocean and more than twice was tossed in the cruelty of a crashing wave, rolling in the white, the shushing, the close-to-oblivion. My mind was like that now.”​

After scheming and plotting the other animals in the park hatch a plan to set Johannes free. Cleverly illustrated by Shawn Harris, this 2024 Newberry award winning book is a great choice as a gift for any child and a fine diversion for readers of any age.

This reminds me that I just was reading a children's story. I recently picked up a copy of Kipling's Just so Stories.
There is the old joke/postcard- How do you like Kipling?
Answer: I don't know, I've never Kippled.

Well, I hadn't read Kipling before and was expecting something else.

Anyway, I read How the Whale Got His Throat. Here is an example:

He (the whale) ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace,
and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the truly twirly-whirly eel...

Well (Whale), speaking of throats, I found the writing hard to swallow. The book will go into one of those mini-libraries,
down the street that specializes in juvenile lit.

On the other hand, I sometimes try to cleanse my brain of over-stylized writing by reading "fairy tales",
that sort of get down to the basics-- But I have sort of committed myself to reading Birthday- The
surrealist autobiography mentioned the other day.

Unfortunately, I found the first couple pages almost unreadable.
I looked up other reviews to see how my reaction compared.

Overview (Goodreads)
"You can laugh at the past," says Dorothea Tanning,
"you cannot laugh at the future." Her memoir (no
'ghost' for Tanning) of life with Max Ernst in postwar
Paris and America (she was his 4th wife) is an original
"rumination, souvenir" of a surrealist vision.

This adventurous artist from Galesburg, Ill, fragments
Time & Memory as she recalls Andre Breton, Roland
Penrose, Man Ray. Essentially hers is a personal
story and, as one critic said, "a poetic evocation in
which dream and reality can mingle."

The Left Bank was "a perpetual carnival where disguise
and discretion are one and the same." It contrasts with
a lengthy retreat in Sedona, Arizona, where "an electrical
storm could hang a ball of white fire in the doorway."
Modest luxuries - telling your best ideas to a dog or
crying for fun...


July 1, 2007 Review
I'd wanted to read this one since the late 80's, but never got around to it. Now it's long out of print and the publisher doesn't even exist anymore. Well, I finally read it and I hated it. I really hated it. How can a book about being married to Max Ernst suck so badly? Tanning's prose is excruciating. But I've read nothing but positive things about it, so it must be me.

Another review
May 30, 2023
Dorothea Tanning sure can write

So, I guess I side more with the first reviewer. It reminds me of how a person who is not a writer writes when they want to seem like a writer-
and maybe it's worth reading as long as I keep that in mind, but that's for the future.

Oh, speaking of the book being out of print- turns out my paperback is now worth about $50.00.
 
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Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
More and more, it seems that I am writing about books I give up on reading.
I have given up on Dorothea Tannings Birthday. The writing style is so convoluted
and (seemingly) pretentious that it's like trying to swim while carrying an anchor.
After reading a paragraph three or four times I begin to appreciate the insight- but it's
unpleasant work. So I set it aside...

... and picked up a book of cartoons at the thrift store.
I may also need to rethink randomness as a method of finding reading material.

Anyway, I picked up a book by James Thurber, Men, Women and Dogs- all cartoons.

Finally, I begin to realize that Thurber just isn't very funny. Looking back over the books,
stories, essays I have read- not funny- oddly amusing, maybe, sort of droll, skewed,
dry, observant of the limitations of vocabulary, the unspoken, expressive of the repressed,
and possibly more- but not funny.

some examples:
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
I have always admired your willingness to take the risk of buying a book you know nothing about and giving it a try. I hope you don't give that up entirely. You can always take a break and read a "tried-and-true" when randomness lets you down.
I think that I would act like that if I were immortal, as I would know that I would always recoup the time spent reading a book in the case it was not good. This is because I always finish the books I start reading.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides has stoic Sinner aura.
I really liked Dune, Then tried to read the second novel, Dune Messiah.
Everything seemed somehow askew, a little bit "off"- and rather than have my
good memories of Dune ruined- I gave up on the book and reread the first novel again.
I feel bad about not liking it. Is there anything you (who finished the book) can say to help me try again?
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
As anounced in my books purchases above, now I am reading this one:

(The Correspondence of the -Latin American- Boom)Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa

It's a collection of letters exchanged between these writers (actually the ones that could be kept).
These were personal friends in the 60’s, and currently, only Vargas Llosa (the younger of them) is alive. To locate them in time: Cortázar (1914-1984), García Márquez (1927-2014), Fuentes (1928-2012), and Vargas Llosa (1936-).
There is a general consensus that those were the major exponents of the Latin American Boom.
It's interesting to see how they shared their books before publishing them, and how they supported reading and commenting each other's works.
I am finishing this book these days.
Now I am in the last part where one of the writers comments books of another.
Nice read.
 
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