Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week including some great tips for South African novels, an account of reading East of Eden while caravanning in the rain – and other location-related reading memories – and a reflection on how middle-class the act of reading is perceived as in different countries.
AndyPrince is reading “escapist non fiction” [see picture below]:
Gorgeous, richly-described search for the remaining wild places in the British Isles. Makes me want to walk, sleep the night under a hedge and pontificate whilst up a tree.
Audrey Schoeman shared:
Another great week for new authors on my part – I’m really breaking out of my comfort zone lately and it’s been a wonderful experience. [...] I received two South African novels, both first published in 1993 and being re-released by Archipelago this year.
The Folly, by Ivan Vladislavic, was wonderful. It’s a political allegory (or parable? Or something in between?) that must have been amazing to read in the context of emerging democratic South Africa in 1993 but has lost none of its power over the years. The second SA novel, This Life by Karel Schoeman, didn’t excite me nearly as much. It’s a poetic history of an Afrikaaner family living on the frontier of the Cape in the last half of the 19th century, but it didn’t explore a lot of the issues that I would want a book like that to explore. By that really I mean the power dynamic and racism that was making the accumulation of wealth possible for the Afrikaaner families. It was beautifully written, but can you imagine a contemporary novel about a plantation that just took slavery for granted and dealt only with the lives of the slave owners?
Tanvir Uddin is going through John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which prompted a discussion comparing it to The Grapes of Wrath.
I loved East of Eden over The Grapes of Wrath too. Partly, I think, my bias was due to having seen the movie with James Dean – even though the movie is only loosely based on the novel.
I also remember reading East of Eden during a rainy weeklong caravanning holiday in Aberystwyth, Wales when we kept having to come back to the safety of our caravan every day because it would start pouring like nobody’s business outdoors. Which, of course, I didn’t mind too much as I loved getting back to my book. Do others have memories of where/when they read some of their favorite books?
Read about other great reading location memories (Treasure Island in a hospital, John Irving at a capoeira festival on the beach in Brazil and more) here.
Catalina Jaime Sanchez is enjoying this “gem from Japan” in the Philippines:
Jenny Bhatt has also finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Collected Stories:
Having read his novels before, I found some of these stories quite like them – in that, they create similar worlds. But, the collection got off a bit slow for me. The earlier stories were harder to get into and felt like they were, likely, interesting experiments for him. As I got to the last few stories, I felt like I was back in familiar and much-loved GGM-land where unexpected things happen when you least expect them. What a yarn spinner he was, truly. Reminded me of my maternal grandfather who often told us such fantastical stories (though, of course, not quite so eloquently). Overall, though, I have to say that, if I had to pick between GGM’s novels and short stories, I’d pick his novels first. I wonder how he felt about the two forms of fiction ... which one he preferred. Will look for some of his interviews.
hollyhalo is reading Guru, My Days with Del Close, by Jeff Griggs:
Del P. Close was an American actor, writer, and teacher who coached many of the best-known comedians and comic actors of the late twentieth century. In addition to a prolific acting career in television and film, he was considered a premier influence on modern improvisational theater. His notable students are too numerous to mention.
Amid some inevitable political chat last week, Oranje14 raised this interesting question:
I had a brief exchange with someone on another thread last week which may interest the TLS regulars. I replied to one of those “you lot are all sneering Islington middle class guardianista types” comments, I’m sure you know them? Anyway, I replied that I was sneering but that I am working class. The response to this was that I can’t be working class because of my comment history. For the record, my comment history for the past couple of months was exclusively about books and exclusively on these TLS pages.
My question (I am getting there, I promise) is this: is it only in the UK that reading is seen as something which isn’t for the plebs? I wonder what our American and French (amongst others) friends make of this. I know people don’t read as much as they used to, but didn’t realise it was a class issue?
Interesting links about books and reading
- Bellow After Death: “What do we make of Bellow’s presentation of the typical intellectual as a virile many-wived, or at least many-lovered, creature, a well-traveled adventurer of the mind with butter on his patent leather shoes?” Gary Shteyngart on the American writer for the New York Review of Books, which “seems to be the literary flavor of the month here in the US,” said reader Swelter.
- How Will I Live? Fame, Money, Day Jobs, and Fiction Writing. A The Millions piece on authors’ day jobs.
- How to Ruin a Flight: Read the same book as your significant other: an amusing piece in The Missouri Review about literary competitions between partners.
- The Science of Speed Reading: an interesting infographic about this reading technique, with insights, tips and fun facts.
If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.
And, as always, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see us covering beyond TLS, do let us know.
