What book are you reading?

Azure

G.O.A.T.
It's hard to believe that the same person who writes about dismembering people could also come up with something as sappy as this:

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

@Azure would rather not read Poe, I believe. I think it's important to the success of the Book Club that we come up with a book that the main contributors to the Club thread want to read otherwise the thread could die like it did when The Tale of Genji was selected. I really don't want to read Wuthering Heights, but if you, @Azure, and @Sudacafan want to read it, I can drop out and read something else otherwise, we should keep looking.
I am ok with Poe. I am a very flexible Persian :D;)
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
It's hard to believe that the same person who writes about dismembering people could also come up with something as sappy as this:

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

@Azure would rather not read Poe, I believe. I think it's important to the success of the Book Club that we come up with a book that the main contributors to the Club thread want to read otherwise the thread could die like it did when The Tale of Genji was selected. I really don't want to read Wuthering Heights, but if you, @Azure, and @Sudacafan want to read it, I can drop out and read something else otherwise, we should keep looking.
No, in that case, Wuthering Heights is off my radar. I've read it before, and though it is special in its way, it is not a fun book.
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
I think we should still keep looking.
I have been meaning to read Fernando Pessoa for a while. Since he is South American I wasn't sure it might be redundant since our last book was one too. However on the plus side, it's poetry, something we want to do at some point.

Edit - I checked. He is Portuguese. Anyone interested? Anyone read The Book of Disquiet?
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
I have been meaning to read Fernando Pessoa for a while. Since he is South American I wasn't sure it might be redundant since our last book was one too. However on the plus side, it's poetry, something we want to do at some point.

Edit - I checked. He is Portuguese. Anyone interested? Anyone read The Book of Disquiet?
I read The Book of Disquiet, which is very good, and it’s his most acclaimed work also. By the way, it’s the only book I read from Pessoa. I would like to read something I have not read, for a change, but if everyone is OK, I’ll follow.
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
I read The Book of Disquiet, which is very good, and it’s his most acclaimed work also. By the way, it’s the only book I read from Pessoa. I would like to read something I have not read, for a change, but if everyone is OK, I’ll follow.
We can read the Poems of Fernando Pessoa as well. It's something in my to-read list on Goodreads.

Two more for consideration:

Silas Marner - George Eliot
Women in Love - DH Lawrence (not sure if this crosses over into erotica for @Azure)
Read Silas Marner last year during the lockdown. I am ok with the other.
 

milk of amnesia

Hall of Fame
We can read the Poems of Fernando Pessoa as well. It's something in my to-read list on Goodreads.

An entire book of one person's poems is a lot. Perhaps you could just save a select few for when the genre is poetry and we each contribute a few poems that we like and have a general discussion. Is that what you would like to do that for the October Book Club?
 

milk of amnesia

Hall of Fame
Two more suggestions - both Nobel Prize winning authors:

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse (I believe @Bagumbawalla suggested this a while ago)

If we are still considering Raymond Chandler, how about The Little Sister?
 
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NonP

Legend
Don't have time for a full reply but....

I read Wuthering Heights, long ago, so long ago I have forgotten most of it. I like the word "Wuthering". Jane Eyre is possibly a better book- even more gloomy, if possible. The kind of books that I tend to like, I would not want to force on anyone, so I will follow the others.

Emily's only novel is better than Charlotte's magnum opus. Harold Bloom compares Heathcliff to Captain Ahab and even Milton's Satan, and if you're remotely familiar with Bloom's criticism you know how high that praise is. I believe you said something about Morel's all-consuming passion in the BC thread and Heathcliff's changes the world around him like no character's in Jane Erye.

Just got the ABC this weekend (yeah, been busy) and will share my thoughts probably after the 15th. As for the next BC I'm leaning toward Wuthering Heights myself so y'all start pressuring @milk of amnesia to join us. :cool::p
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Don't have time for a full reply but....



Emily's only novel is better than Charlotte's magnum opus. Harold Bloom compares Heathcliff to Captain Ahab and even Milton's Satan, and if you're remotely familiar with Bloom's criticism you know how high that praise is. I believe you said something about Morel's all-consuming passion in the BC thread and Heathcliff's changes the world around him like no character's in Jane Erye.

Just got the ABC this weekend (yeah, been busy) and will share my thoughts probably after the 15th. As for the next BC I'm leaning toward Wuthering Heights myself so y'all start pressuring @milk of amnesia to join us. :cool::p

Were you able to read TIoM? If, so, and when you have time, would like to hear your views.
 

milk of amnesia

Hall of Fame
Non-fiction Selections:

A Terrible Splendor by Marshall Jon Fisher

additionally

A Singer's Notebook - Ian Bostridge
Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life in and Out of Jazz - Fred Hersch
Travels with Lizbeth - Lars Eighner
Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings - Earl Swift
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century - Ross E. Dunn
 
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Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Well, I began the Charlie Chan detective novel, Behind That Curtain (1928). It is really very poor, but I am reading it mostly for historical reasons. I am on page 44, and have not caught up to the information provided on the back-page blurb. Also, so many things that just don't make sense. I will give it a couple chapters- then we'll see.
 

milk of amnesia

Hall of Fame
Two more suggestions - both Nobel Prize winning authors:

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse (I believe @Bagumbawalla suggested this a while ago)

If we are still considering Raymond Chandler, how about The Little Sister?
Haven’t read any of these so all good for me
@Sudacafan @Bagumbawalla do any of the above interest you? @Sudacafan, what else is on your "To Read," list that we can consider?
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
The Glass Bead Game is worth reading, but is nearly 600 pages long and complex.
Of the other 2, WH is a gothic/Victorian classic, GPB is a comic/jazz age minor classic.

WH is imbued with a kind of dark poetry, but is nevertheless a dreary novel about mean-spirited people.
GPB is the opposite of that, and is shorter.
 

NonP

Legend
FYI I'd already begun writing the next Book Club OP for WH but will be fine with GPB if @milk of amnesia is that dead set against Emily's masterwork, especially since the Howard Hawks film happens to be one of my faves.

That said....

The Glass Bead Game is worth reading, but is nearly 600 pages long and complex.
Of the other 2, WH is a gothic/Victorian classic, GPB is a comic/jazz age minor classic.

WH is imbued with a kind of dark poetry, but is nevertheless a dreary novel about mean-spirited people.
GPB is the opposite of that, and is shorter.

You really aren't doing a very good job selling WH to milk and other potential readers, LOL. Heathcliff is a sublime hero-villain (or a "negative hero," in Bloom's parlance) whose obsessive passion far transcends mean-spiritedness, and I don't see how one could charaterize Hareton and the 2nd Catherine in such unflattering terms. Au contraire WH is one of the most beautiful books ever written, hence my willingness to revisit it after all these years.

As for the other book:

Were you able to read TIoM? If, so, and when you have time, would like to hear your views.

Not yet, got a work deadline coming up. Hoping to get started tonight. (And yes, a new NonP dissertation will follow.)

And one more thing:

Non-fiction Selections:

A Terrible Splendor by Marshall Jon Fisher

additionally

A Singer's Notebook - Ian Bostridge
Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life in and Out of Jazz - Fred Hersch
Travels with Lizbeth - Lars Eighner
Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings - Earl Swift
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century - Ross E. Dunn

Nonfiction is cool but think we should stick to the canon/classics for now. Maybe we could finally tackle the Thucydides later on.
 

stringertom

Bionic Poster
I just finished the latest installment of the DCI Pirie caper solving series, Still Life. I’m sure Val McDermid was working on this story for quite a while before the pandemic but she weaved reality into the plot at the finish by dating Pirie’s solutions to the crimes at the end of February 2020. She then sends off the cast of characters to various locations to endure quarantine and hopefully return to be the Scottish sleuths I have grown to read about.

I do have one gripe though…the constant food dialogue and consumption by the main characters has led me to gain extra pounds as I read. No more scones and biscuits, please!
 
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stringertom

Bionic Poster
I intended on reading Philipp Meyer’s American Rust before Showtime aired their film adaptation but the book was out of circulation so I opted for the author’s other touted title, The Son. I just started it last night and it definitely shows some potential. Meyer traces an American family’s saga going way back to the days before Texas rebelled against Mexico in the 1830s. I will have to keep track of all the details scattered over the course of nearly a century. The first three chapters have been devoted to three different generations from the patriarch (a Scottish immigrant to the Old South who went West with nothing but a desire to live free or die doing it) in the 19th century to a comtemporary heiress and then back to the early 20th century agrarian empire built by the second generation patron.

Will keep everyone updated.
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
I just finished the latest installment of the DCI Pirie caper solving series, Still Life. I’m sure Val McDermid was working on this story for quite a while before the pandemic but she weaved reality into the plot at the finish by dating Pirie’s solutions to the crimes at the end of February 2020. She then sends off the cast of characters to various locations to endure quarantine and hopefully return to bee we the Scottish sleuths I have grown to read about.

I do have one gripe though…the constant food dialogue and consumption by the main characters has led me to gain extra pounds as I read. No more scones and biscuits, please!
Please don't emulate the big fella no matter what Dali keeps telling you!

I like movies and books that have food as a theme running in them. It makes for excellent side track! One of my favs is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. The book actually has a couple of recipes at the end :D
 

Azure

G.O.A.T.
Since @Sudacafan ranks Gentlemen Prefer Blondes over The Glass Bead Game and everyone else seems neutral, let's go with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for the October Book Club. We can re-consider The Glass Bead Game when we are ready to sink our teeth into something a little more complex.
Yes let's take a slightly easy book this time but for our third let's go with Hesse. I am already looking forward to it. Btw, do you have any pdf library links for it? I don't think I want to buy the book. Thanks.
 

milk of amnesia

Hall of Fame
I intended on reading Philipp Meyer’s American Rust before Showtime aired their film adaptation but the book was out of circulation so I opted for the author’s other touted title, The Son. I just started it last night and it definitely shows some potential. Meyer traces an American family’s saga going way back to the days before Texas rebelled against Mexico in the 1830s. I will have to keep track of all the details scattered over the course of nearly a century. The first three chapters have been devoted to three different generations from the patriarch (a Scottish immigrant to the Old South who went West with nothing but a desire to live free or die doing it) in the 19th century to a comtemporary heiress and then back to the early 20th century agrarian empire built by the second generation patron.

Will keep everyone updated.
Once you're are done willl you join us for the next Book Club? :)
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Well, I finished the Charlie Chan detective novel, mentioned somewhere, above and am sorry I did.
It was just awful. Not sure what I was expecting. I had never even seen one of the old movies.
I liked the idea of someone with maybe a Zen, Taoist, Buddhist, or Confucianist mentality solving crimes in a different manner and attitude from the standard format. But it was none of those things.

It was a collection of the stupidest stereotypes, uninspired characters, insipid dialogue, convenient happenings, weak plotting, and just unbelievable situations. Worse than a waste of time.
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Oh, I forgot. I just sent away for a copy of Gentelmen Prefer Blonds from one of those used book warehouses.
If you order 2 books you get free shipping (so it's like getting one free). So I also ordered one of those
Val McDermid mysteries. Hopefully, it will make up for the awful Charlie Chan thing. They should arrive around the first.

Also found 2 more thrift shop books. One by Ken Jennings of all people, called Planet Funny- How Comedy Ruined
Everything. Another is The Forgotten Language, by Eric Fromm- about fairy tales, myths and dreams.
I always seem to misplace my car in dreams. Maybe this will help.
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Have started reading The Disappearing Spoon, a book about the periodic table of elements.
So far I have been enjoying it (through chapter five), and learning stuff at the same time.

The Disappearing Spoon thing comes from chemists practical jokes where they would mold a Spoon from gallium, a metal (melting point 84 degrees f) and when used to stir hot tea, would mysteriously melt into a silvery nothingness.

The author explores the various elements and their relationships. How, for example, Fritz Haber, German Jew, during WW1, received a Nobel prize for creating ammonia from nitrogen, but was more interested in gas warfare. He also invented an insecticide, zyklon A. Zyklon B, was used to kill millions in German Gas chambers.

The book also talks about how the need for Tantalium and Niobium resulted in millions of deaths in the Congo, and the near extinction of gorillas.

Sort of like everything we were never taught in chemistry 1a.
 

Mike Bulgakov

G.O.A.T.
97808050949781384278601.jpg


Overt and Covert
By Adam LeBor
Nov. 8, 2013


Allen Dulles spent much of World War II working for the Office of Strategic Services, running the American intelligence operation out of the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland.

The O.S.S. was dissolved in 1945 by President Truman, but was soon reborn as the C.I.A. Kinzer notes that Truman did not support plots against foreign leaders but his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, had no such scruples. By 1953, with Allen Dulles running the C.I.A. and his brother in charge of the State Department, the interventionists’ dreams could come to fruition. Kinzer lists what he calls the “six monsters” that the Dulles brothers believed had to be brought down: Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Sukarno in Indonesia, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Only two of these, Ho Chi Minh and Castro, were hard-core Communists. The rest were nationalist leaders seeking independence for their countries and a measure of control over their natural resources.

Ironically, Ho Chi Minh and Castro, strengthened perhaps by their Marxist faith, proved the most resilient. But the world still lives with the consequences of bringing down Mossadegh, who might have guided Iran, and thus world history, along a very different path. The 1953 C.I.A.-sponsored coup that brought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power was seared into Iran’s national consciousness, fueling a reservoir of fury that was released with the Islamic revolution of 1979.

The Iranian section of Kinzer’s book is especially strong. Here he calls attention to the cancellation by the Iranian Parliament of a contract for what was said to be “the largest overseas development project in modern history” with Overseas Consultants Inc., an American engineering conglomerate. But it seems likely that it was the Iranian Parliament’s vote to nationalize the oil industry that sealed Mossadegh’s fate. (Allen Dulles represented the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation, one of whose clients was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.)

The brothers’ Manichaean worldview proved to be a poor tool for dealing with the complexities of the postcolonial era. Leaders like Lumumba and Mossadegh might well have been open to cooperation with the United States, seeing it as a natural ally for enemies of colonialism. However, for the Dulles brothers, and for much of the American government, threats to corporate interests were categorized as support for communism. “For us,” John Foster Dulles once explained, “there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who are Christians and support free enterprise, and there are the others.” Rejected by the United States, the new leaders turned to Moscow.

President Johnson privately complained that the C.I.A. had been running “a goddamn Murder Inc. in the Caribbean,” an entirely accurate assessment — except the beneficiaries were American corporations rather than organized crime. Nowadays, the Dulles brothers have faded from America’s collective memory. The bust of John Foster, once on view at the airport west of Washington that bears his name, has been relocated to a private conference room. Outside the world of intelligence aficionados, Allen Dulles is little known. Yet both these men shaped our modern world and America’s sense of its “exceptionalism.” They should be remembered, Kinzer argues, precisely because of their failures: “They are us. We are them.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/books/review/the-brothers-by-stephen-kinzer.html
 
S

Slicehand

Guest
im not reading it now but i read sometime ago keith richards biographical book "life" its cool, he teaches you to play a couple of chords and brags about how he had the purest powders and that made him survive despite all he took, wouldnt read it twice tough, in fact, if i could go back i wouldnt read it at all, now i have to finish el quijote
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
97808050949781384278601.jpg


Overt and Covert
By Adam LeBor
Nov. 8, 2013


Allen Dulles spent much of World War II working for the Office of Strategic Services, running the American intelligence operation out of the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland.

The O.S.S. was dissolved in 1945 by President Truman, but was soon reborn as the C.I.A. Kinzer notes that Truman did not support plots against foreign leaders but his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, had no such scruples. By 1953, with Allen Dulles running the C.I.A. and his brother in charge of the State Department, the interventionists’ dreams could come to fruition. Kinzer lists what he calls the “six monsters” that the Dulles brothers believed had to be brought down: Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Sukarno in Indonesia, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Only two of these, Ho Chi Minh and Castro, were hard-core Communists. The rest were nationalist leaders seeking independence for their countries and a measure of control over their natural resources.

Ironically, Ho Chi Minh and Castro, strengthened perhaps by their Marxist faith, proved the most resilient. But the world still lives with the consequences of bringing down Mossadegh, who might have guided Iran, and thus world history, along a very different path. The 1953 C.I.A.-sponsored coup that brought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power was seared into Iran’s national consciousness, fueling a reservoir of fury that was released with the Islamic revolution of 1979.

The Iranian section of Kinzer’s book is especially strong. Here he calls attention to the cancellation by the Iranian Parliament of a contract for what was said to be “the largest overseas development project in modern history” with Overseas Consultants Inc., an American engineering conglomerate. But it seems likely that it was the Iranian Parliament’s vote to nationalize the oil industry that sealed Mossadegh’s fate. (Allen Dulles represented the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation, one of whose clients was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.)

The brothers’ Manichaean worldview proved to be a poor tool for dealing with the complexities of the postcolonial era. Leaders like Lumumba and Mossadegh might well have been open to cooperation with the United States, seeing it as a natural ally for enemies of colonialism. However, for the Dulles brothers, and for much of the American government, threats to corporate interests were categorized as support for communism. “For us,” John Foster Dulles once explained, “there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who are Christians and support free enterprise, and there are the others.” Rejected by the United States, the new leaders turned to Moscow.

President Johnson privately complained that the C.I.A. had been running “a goddamn Murder Inc. in the Caribbean,” an entirely accurate assessment — except the beneficiaries were American corporations rather than organized crime. Nowadays, the Dulles brothers have faded from America’s collective memory. The bust of John Foster, once on view at the airport west of Washington that bears his name, has been relocated to a private conference room. Outside the world of intelligence aficionados, Allen Dulles is little known. Yet both these men shaped our modern world and America’s sense of its “exceptionalism.” They should be remembered, Kinzer argues, precisely because of their failures: “They are us. We are them.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/books/review/the-brothers-by-stephen-kinzer.html
Nice review.
 

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Just read the 3-page prologue of Laidlaw, the work many Tartan Noir writers consider the groundbreaker for their genre. It was published in 1977 as Part 1 of a trilogy. The author William McIlvanney (d. 2015) also wrote non-crime related novels, one of which (The Big Man) was adapted to film and starred Liam Neeson and Billy Connolly (1990).

I have a new vein in the TN mine with these plus there are great reviews offered by other authors I have yet to read.
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Well, I finally finished The Disappearing Spoon
and Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History
of the world from the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Basically, the author, Sam Kean, wrIres a book about the periodic table that we find
on the wall of your chemistry classroom and makes it interesting.

He discusses all the elements, how they were predicted or discovered, how they were named, how they are used (and misused) and all that, but additionally we get background material about the scientists, their methods, political struggles, failures, breakthroughs and private and public dramas.

Though in parts it does go into detailed explanations, it is never unnecessarily heavy while full
of interesting insights.
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
This is obviously not a book- it is a short story (?) by Samuel Beckett. The title is Ping

Basically, all the sentences are run together like what you see. Lots of repetition. Just for fun, for the book club people (and others)- what does it mean, what is it about? If I had written this, rather than Beckett, would it have been published?
I suppose there are things that could be said about it- but what?

Ping

All known all white bare white body fixed one yard legs joined like sewn. Light heat white floor one square yard never seen. White walls one yard by two white ceiling one square yard never seen. Bare white body fixed only the eyes only just. Traces blurs light grey almost white on white. Hands hanging palms front white feet heels together right angle. Light heat white planes shining white bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Bare white body fixed white on white invisible. Only the eyes only just light blue almost white. Head haught eyes light blue almost white silence within. Brief murmurs only just almost never all known. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Legs joined like sewn heels together right angle. Traces alone unover given black light grey almost white on white. Light heat white walls shining white one yard by two. Bare white body fixed one yard ping fixed elsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. White feet toes joined like sewn heels together right angle invisible. Eyes alone unover given blue light blue almost white. Murmur only just almost never one second perhaps not alone. Given rose only just bare white body fixed one yard white on white invisible. All white all known murmurs only just almost never always the same all known. Light heat hands hanging palms front white on white invisible. Bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere. Only the eyes only just light blue almost white fixed front. Ping murmur only just almost never one second perhaps a way out. Head haught eyes light blue almost white fixed front ping murmur ping silence. Eyes holes light blue almost white mouth white seam like sewn invisible. Ping murmur perhaps a nature one second almost never that much memory almost never. Whitewalls each its trace grey blur signs no meaning light grey almost white. Light heat all known all white planes meeting invisible. Ping murmur only just almost never one second perhaps a meaning that much memory almost never. White feet toes joined like sewn heels together right angle ping elsewhere no sound. Hands hanging palms front legs joined like sewn. Head haught eyes holes light blue almost white fixed front silence within. Ping elsewhere always there but that known not. Eyes holes light blue alone unover given blue light blue almost white only colour fixed front. All white all known white planes shining white ping murmur only just almost never one second light time that much memory almost never. Bare white body fixed one yard ping fixed elsewhere white on white invisible heart breath no sound.Only the eyes given blue light blue almost white fixed front only colour alone unover. Planes meeting invisible one only shining white infinite but that known not. Nose ears white holes mouth white seam like sewn invisible. Ping murmurs only just almost never one second always the same all known. Given rose only just bare white body fixed one yard invisible all known without within. Ping perhaps a nature one second with image same time a little less blue and white in the wind. White ceiling shining white one square yard never seen ping perhaps way out there one second ping silence. Traces alone unover given black grey blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white always the same. Ping perhaps not alone one second with image always the same same time a little less that much memory almost never ping silence.Given rose only just nails fallen white over. Long hair fallen white invisible over. White scars invisible same white as flesh torn of old given rose only just. Ping image only just almost never one second light time blue and white in the wind. Head haught nose ears white holes mouth white seam like sewn invisible over. Only the eyes given blue fixed front light blue almost white only colour alone unover. Light heat white planes shining white one only shining white infinite but that known not. Ping a nature only just almost never one second with image same time a little less blue and white in the wind. Traces blurs light grey eyes holes light blue almost white fixed front ping a meaning only just almost never ping silence. Bare white one yard fixed ping fixed elsewhere no sound legs joined like sewn heels together right angle hands hanging palms front. Head haught eyes holes light blue almost white fixed front silence within. Ping elsewhere always there but that known not. Ping perhaps not alone one second with image same time a little less dim eye black and white half closed long lashes imploring that much memory almost never. Afar flash of time all white all over all of old ping flash white walls shining white no trace eyes holes light blue almost white last colour ping white over. Ping fixed last elsewhere legs joined like sewn heels together right angle hands hanging palms front head haught eyes white invisible fixed front over. Given rose only just one yard invisible bare white all known without within over. White ceiling never seen ping of old only just almost never one second light time white floor never seen ping of old perhaps there. Ping of old only just perhaps a meaning a nature one second almost never blue and white in the wind that much memory henceforth never. White planes no trace shining white one only shining white infinite but that known not. Light heat all known all white heart breath no sound. Head haught eyes white fixed front old ping last murmur one second perhaps not alone eye unlustrous black and white half closed long lashes imploring ping silence ping over.
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
This is obviously not a book- it is a short story (?) by Samuel Beckett. The title is Ping

Basically, all the sentences are run together like what you see. Lots of repetition. Just for fun, for the book club people (and others)- what does it mean, what is it about? If I had written this, rather than Beckett, would it have been published?
I suppose there are things that could be said about it- but what?

Ping

All known all white bare white body fixed one yard legs joined like sewn. Light heat white floor one square yard never seen. White walls one yard by two white ceiling one square yard never seen. Bare white body fixed only the eyes only just. Traces blurs light grey almost white on white. Hands hanging palms front white feet heels together right angle. Light heat white planes shining white bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Bare white body fixed white on white invisible. Only the eyes only just light blue almost white. Head haught eyes light blue almost white silence within. Brief murmurs only just almost never all known. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. Legs joined like sewn heels together right angle. Traces alone unover given black light grey almost white on white. Light heat white walls shining white one yard by two. Bare white body fixed one yard ping fixed elsewhere. Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white. White feet toes joined like sewn heels together right angle invisible. Eyes alone unover given blue light blue almost white. Murmur only just almost never one second perhaps not alone. Given rose only just bare white body fixed one yard white on white invisible. All white all known murmurs only just almost never always the same all known. Light heat hands hanging palms front white on white invisible. Bare white body fixed ping fixed elsewhere. Only the eyes only just light blue almost white fixed front. Ping murmur only just almost never one second perhaps a way out. Head haught eyes light blue almost white fixed front ping murmur ping silence. Eyes holes light blue almost white mouth white seam like sewn invisible. Ping murmur perhaps a nature one second almost never that much memory almost never. Whitewalls each its trace grey blur signs no meaning light grey almost white. Light heat all known all white planes meeting invisible. Ping murmur only just almost never one second perhaps a meaning that much memory almost never. White feet toes joined like sewn heels together right angle ping elsewhere no sound. Hands hanging palms front legs joined like sewn. Head haught eyes holes light blue almost white fixed front silence within. Ping elsewhere always there but that known not. Eyes holes light blue alone unover given blue light blue almost white only colour fixed front. All white all known white planes shining white ping murmur only just almost never one second light time that much memory almost never. Bare white body fixed one yard ping fixed elsewhere white on white invisible heart breath no sound.Only the eyes given blue light blue almost white fixed front only colour alone unover. Planes meeting invisible one only shining white infinite but that known not. Nose ears white holes mouth white seam like sewn invisible. Ping murmurs only just almost never one second always the same all known. Given rose only just bare white body fixed one yard invisible all known without within. Ping perhaps a nature one second with image same time a little less blue and white in the wind. White ceiling shining white one square yard never seen ping perhaps way out there one second ping silence. Traces alone unover given black grey blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white always the same. Ping perhaps not alone one second with image always the same same time a little less that much memory almost never ping silence.Given rose only just nails fallen white over. Long hair fallen white invisible over. White scars invisible same white as flesh torn of old given rose only just. Ping image only just almost never one second light time blue and white in the wind. Head haught nose ears white holes mouth white seam like sewn invisible over. Only the eyes given blue fixed front light blue almost white only colour alone unover. Light heat white planes shining white one only shining white infinite but that known not. Ping a nature only just almost never one second with image same time a little less blue and white in the wind. Traces blurs light grey eyes holes light blue almost white fixed front ping a meaning only just almost never ping silence. Bare white one yard fixed ping fixed elsewhere no sound legs joined like sewn heels together right angle hands hanging palms front. Head haught eyes holes light blue almost white fixed front silence within. Ping elsewhere always there but that known not. Ping perhaps not alone one second with image same time a little less dim eye black and white half closed long lashes imploring that much memory almost never. Afar flash of time all white all over all of old ping flash white walls shining white no trace eyes holes light blue almost white last colour ping white over. Ping fixed last elsewhere legs joined like sewn heels together right angle hands hanging palms front head haught eyes white invisible fixed front over. Given rose only just one yard invisible bare white all known without within over. White ceiling never seen ping of old only just almost never one second light time white floor never seen ping of old perhaps there. Ping of old only just perhaps a meaning a nature one second almost never blue and white in the wind that much memory henceforth never. White planes no trace shining white one only shining white infinite but that known not. Light heat all known all white heart breath no sound. Head haught eyes white fixed front old ping last murmur one second perhaps not alone eye unlustrous black and white half closed long lashes imploring ping silence ping over.
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stringertom

Bionic Poster
I finished Laidlaw on Monday and returned it to my library branch about 10 minutes before closing time. Needing to cool down after my walk (2 miles and change), I sat outside on a bench and hydrated a bit before trying to find another title to nurse me through a book jones until my next Laidlaw book on order arrives. Not 20 feet inside the door sits a new arrival section. On its solo shelf sat 1979, a new novel from Crime Queen Val McDermid. A higher power may be behind this good fortune!

Regarding Laidlaw, the great majority of authors in Tartan Noir consider this book established who was the real boss in writing skills and their choice of GOAT is Laidlaw author William McIlvanney, I have to agree. His prose borders on being a non-rhythmic poetry. Tremendous story teller!
 

Bagumbawalla

G.O.A.T.
Well, I have about 12 books waiting in a holding pattern to be read (and one that I take with me while my wife shops), but I found a book yesterday that seems interesting. I have just read a few pages. It's called

Retreat from Reason- an essay on the intellectual life of our time- by Peter Nathan.

Though it was published in 1955, it seems to focus clearly on many of the issues we are facing today.

A quote from the first chapter- " In our time many intellectuals look back longingly to the days when all men were ignorant and simple believers... They have come to distrust the intellect and an intellectual approach to any of the real problems of life. This is happening at a time when the achievements of science are such that no dreamer in a previous century aur even imagined them.

Sounds familiar.

I will report more as I progress.
 
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