1 post tagged “georges bataille”
BOOKS BOUGHT:
- McSweeney's #25--Dave Eggers (editor)
- Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, etc.--Ted Thompson (editor)
- Silence of the Grave--Arnaldur Indriðason
- Voices--Arnaldur Indriðason
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey--Thornton Wilder
BOOKS RECEIVED FOR CHRISTMAS:
- Tree of Smoke--Denis Johnson
- Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow--Zak Smith
- Jimmy Stewart and His Poems--Jimmy Stewart
- Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting--Jimmy Webb
- Infinite Jest--David Foster Wallace
- Gentlemen of the Road--M-----l Chabon
- The Apocalypse Reader--Justin Taylor (editor)
- Zeroville--Steve Erickson
- Deadeye Dick--Kurt Vonnegut
- Death and Restoration--Iain Pears
- Julius Winsome--Gerard Donovan
- Icelander--Dustin Long
- A Child Again--Robert Coover
- The Best American Comics 2007--Chris Ware (editor)
BOOKS READ:
- A Bend in the River--V.S. Naipaul
A Bend in the River is a good book. It probably even deserves its reputation as a modern classic. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean I enjoyed reading it. I actually found it kind of boring. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a book about post-colonial Africa. That's a topic that rarely interests me. I enjoyed the last couple pages and was better able to appreciate the book once I'd finished it, but reading A Bend in the River felt like a chore to me. I just wanted to finish it and get into something else.
- Story of the Eye--Georges Bataille
One of my favorite songs this year was Of Montreal's "The Past is a Grotesque Animal". There's a line in the song that mentions George Bataille and Story of the Eye, so I thought it would be a good idea to read the book. My logic went like this: If a book is mentioned in a song I like, then I'll like the book. Things started off well. In fact, one of my favorite lines of the year began the second chapter:
That was the period when Simone developed a mania for breaking eggs with her ass.
Sure, that's kind of raunchy, but it's also humorous at the same time. Unfortunately, the book soon lost its humor and Simone and the narrator escalated into unmentionable perversions that made me sick to my stomach. I somehow made it through the book, but I ended up feeling scraped and numb for the next two days.
- Young Lonigan--James T. Farrell
Young Lonigan is the first book in James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan Trilogy. It tells the story of a young Irish ruffian growing up in Chicago in the early 1900s. The events of the first book take place on the day Studs graduates from Catholic school and during the subsequent summer. How does Young Lonigan spend his last summer before high school? Falling in and out of love, getting into fights, smoking cigarettes, checking his look in the mirror, and screwing fourteen year old prostitutes. You know, the usual.
I'm not sure how the rest of the trilogy will play out, but Young Lonigan was a fun read that really made me want to plow through the other two books. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy has the makings of a personal favorite, but I'm going to reserve judgement until I've finished the remaining 800 pages. So far, so good, though.
- The Breast--Philip Roth
Julie recommended The Breast to me after reading my recent review of Goodbye, Columbus. The Breast is similar to Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis except that the protagonist turns into a gigantic breast instead of a dung beetle. The other difference between the two novellas is that The Metamorphosis ended with one of my favorite lines in all of fiction and The Breast ended with a poem I didn't understand.
- Silence of the Grave--Arnaldur Indriðason
- Voices--Arnaldur Indriðason
Silence of the Grave and Voices are the second and third books in Arnaldur Indriðason's Reykjavik Murder Mystery series. I had no intention of reading Silence of the Grave anytime soon, but I noticed that Voices took place at Christmas, so I quickly read the first book so I could read the second at Christmastime. In Silence of the Grave, Inspector Erlendur and his team work to identify a skeleton buried for half a century. The best line in Silence of the Grave is the very first one:
He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.
In Voices, Erlender works to solve the murder of a former child star who has spent the last twenty years working as the doorman at a Reykjavik hotel. The best line in Voices is the following:
He knew that the hotel would never be able to shake off the murder. It would never wipe away the smear. After this it would always be known as the hotel where Santa was found dead with a condom on his penis.
Inspector Erlendur seemed a bit slow on the uptake in Voices, but it was still a good mystery. Both books were enjoyable, quick reads. I'd recommend them to anyone interested in the crime genre or contemporary Nordic fiction.
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Comedy by the Numbers--Eric Hoffman & Gary Rudoren
This is the full version of the book that was published in pamphlet form and given away free with McSweeney's #23. All the funny parts were in the pamplet, so I really shouldn't have bothered buying the full book. There's a saying about giving away the goods for free that concerns virgins and sex and marriage (and maybe even cows), but I can't remember what it is right now. I'm sure it's appropriate, though.
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"Auggie Wren's Christmas Story"--Paul Auster
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"Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor"--John Cheever
I also read the two Christmas-related short stories mentioned above. If anyone out there got that Caroline Kennedy Christmas story collection as a gift this season, you should probably return it and track down these two stories instead. That's just my opinion, of course.
CURRENTLY READING:
- The World Without Us--Alan Weisman
- The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan--James T. Farrell
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey--Thornton Wilder
- The Best American Comics 2007--Chris Ware (editor)
