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| mitty |
 Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 7:20 am |
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Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Location: Way Down Yonder.......
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Found a new author [to me at any rate], John Banville. The Sea, winner of the Man Booker Prize. Now I don't usually go by prizes won, but his style has been compared to Nabokov and he seems a varied and interesting writer. I have another of his...Christine Falls written under the name Benjamin Black. Why on earth they write under another name and then announce it is silly to me, but I suppose there is a good reason somewhere. 
It looks like he can write anything from introspective soul searching to murder mysteries to spy stories. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:09 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| Rod -- May I make a suggestion? I think you'll get more readers if you post the Urls in "The Writer's Corner." |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:26 pm |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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| 'Kay. |
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A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:04 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Uh oh, another website with book links--as if I didn't waste too much time already wandering around Borders and Barnes & Noble, when I'm not proofreading for money... |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:45 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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| I finally got ahold of the The Ghost Road, the third part of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. I read the first two a few years back, and I think it's taken me longer to do the whole lot than the First World War actually lasted; but all three are in the edition I bought, so I can flip back and catch up on anything I've forgotten. Everything that made the first two so involving - the strictly unsentimental study of English society during WW1, the gamy sexuality, the sharp and stimulating intellectualism, are all present, as well as an element that's become more and more relevant; the series' charting of the death of late-Victorian-Edwardian liberalism, being put to sleep, sometimes quietly, sometimes brutally, always hysterically, by the establishment as it cracks down on homosexuals, pacifists, and every other kind of contradiction that can be identified. A significant, if slightly disappointing, move on Barker's part with the second two episodes was to mostly jettison the ironic, shabbily heroic Siegfried Sassoon, and concentrate on bisexual angry young man Billy Prior. But Prior feels at his strongest and most real in the third book. |
Last edited by Rod on Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:45 am; edited 1 time in total
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A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:38 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I'm currently about 50 pages The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. So far, this is a story about Indian immigrants to America and their American-born son. It has been made into a movie directed by Mira Nair, who herself is an immigrant from India. The movie's getting good reviews and I look forward to seeing it.
So far, the novel is brilliant. It's not so much plot-driven as character-driven, as the immigrants adjust to America. Lahiri is a very good writer with a very good eye to detail. So far, she's hardly taken a misstep. If anything, I want more detail, because she does it so well.
About the title: apparently in Bengal, when a child is young, he gets a "Pet name" (daknam) which is sort of like the nicknames we pick up as children, and this is the name he or she will be known as to his family and intimates. This name doesn't necessarily have any meaning; the child starts out with no names, relatives and friends call the child various endearments and eventually one sticks. At some later point, the child gets a "good name" (bhalonam), by which he will be known to the world at large, and this name generally does have a meaning. For example, the father is known as Mithu to his family, and Ashoke to the world at large. .Ashoke means "he who transcends grief," and is a form of Asoka, the great Mauryan emperor. The morth is Monu to her family, and Ashima ("she who is limitless") to the world at large.
Ashoke Ganguli's grandfather was a retired professor of Eastern European Literature and, when Mithu (Ashoke) was young, his grandfather used to read to him, giving Ashoke a love for Russian literature. Ashoke was a bookworm and liked to read while walking, sitting, etc. (I identify with him already.) When his grandfather goes blind with age, he leaves his books to Ashoke, but on the way to retrieve them, Ashoke's train derails, killing many of those on board. Ashoke is one of the few people awake on the train, and, being Ashoke, he is reading Gogol's "The Overcoat." Ashoke is terribly injured in the accident. Since it is five miles away from the nearest station, it takes hours for help to arrive. By this point, Ashoke is unable to do more than whisper a cry for help, which the rescuers can't hear. However, he is clutching the page he was reading from the book and he drops it, a movement the rescuers see and he is saved.
In 1968, his and Ashima's first son is born. Ashima's grandmother was to give the child a name but the letter has not arrived. Ashoke and Ashima discover that the child cannot be released from the hospital without a birth certificate, which requires a name, and "Baby Boy Ganguli" will not do. Thus the child is named Gogol, after the writer of the book who saved his father's life. The parents assume this will be the baby's pet name. I suspect they're in for a surprise. I also don't think the child will want to be called Gogol Ganguli as an adult. (At the point I'm at in the novel, Gogol is three years old and in no position to protest. Besides, the name is easy to pronounce for a baby.)
This, surprisingly, is Lahiri's first novel. On the other hand, she had already won a Pulitzer for a short story collection, so perhaps it's not surprising that her first novel would be excellent.
As for making a movie of it--I don't know. Lahiri's gifts are her prose style, eye to detail and characterization. Mira Nair would have to find a cinematic equivalent to that. Fortunately, Nair is a gifted director, and if I had to choose a director for the film, I would choose her (or possibly Niki Caro).
This is all based on fifty pages of a three hundred page novel. I look forward to seeing if Lahiri can keep it up for the whole book.
PS: This would be a great novel for a discussion forum. It's currently available at bookstores because of the movie release, and you can probably get it at a discount at Border's. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:18 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I finally finished "A Small Death in Lisbon," which was a lot more than just a modern murder mystery with a Nazi past. The investigation into the rape and murder of a teenage girl found on the beach in 1998 is interspersed with the experiences of a German businessman who is brought into the Nazi regime to handle the purchases of wolfram, a mineral vital for wartime munitions, from the government of Portugal. The modern investigation and the convoluted relationships and activities of the German and his Portuguese partner finally mesh in a surprising way, and the detective gets his man--and then some. Excellent book, but I immediately gave it to a friend who had asked to read it, because I know I'm never going to go through the history of postwar Europe like that again. |
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| bparton454 |
| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 12:31 pm |
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Joined: 30 Mar 2007
Posts: 12
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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Hi, everyone - I'm a NYT forums refugee. I recognize some of you from the films forums - I participated over there years ago as desdemona222b.
mitty -
I like John Banville, but you're right, his style is closely modeled after Nabokov, which turns me off because it's derivative.
As for the pen name, Ruth Rendell does the same thing - she has a whole series of novels by Barbara Vine, most of which say on the cover, "Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine." Go figure. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:04 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Oddly enough, I had a whole series of posts on the NYT forum that were, essentially, whiskeypriest posting as opchandrashekar. But that's another story.
Glad to see the PTB have relented. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Welcome pBarton,
While we don't pretend to have the depth and breath of the Book Forums at the Times, [We are mainly a film site] we try our best. I hope you find our little site comfortable.
I was able to see that you used a subject line. That's because I'm using subsilver. However those using Thirdeye can't see it. Why it is set up that way is a mystery to me. But I just wanted you to know so that should you write something that appears confusing, that's probably the reason.
Finally, I'm sorry I never got to know you at the Times. I sincerely hope that changes here.
Marj
PS. I've noticed the use of Ruth Rendell's AKA on some of her books as well. And have never understood it either. But then I've never been a big fan of either. |
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| bparton454 |
| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:30 am |
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Joined: 30 Mar 2007
Posts: 12
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
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Thanks very much for the warm welcome, Marj. I'm sure I'll enjoy myself over here - I'm a film fan, too. I had trouble keeping up with the film forums and the book forums in their heyday, but I managed to do it for awhile. Then I took a 2-year forum sabbatical and now... now....(breaks down and cries)
whiskey -
Did you notice the introductory paragraph on the Book of the Month voting forum??? Think that's directed at us??? Never vote for a book again unless you plan to BOTH read it and discuss it. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:24 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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If only I had time to read what I want to read. I just wrote a book review for Claire Cook's new book ("Life's a Beach"--she also wrote "Must Love Dogs") and she offer to send me her other three novels. What could I say? It would have been impolite to refuse.
I've recently started having a fantasy of just staying home for a week, drinking iced cappuccino and reading my old Wodehouses and Damon Runyons and Dick Francises... I need a vacation. |
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| mitty |
| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:09 pm |
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Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 1359
Location: Way Down Yonder.......
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ACK! Hey there bparton! I'm bushla over on the Grey Lady that shall not be named. No I don't mean madupont either! 
Re Banville....I loved The Sea. And the only thing similar to Nabokov as far as I am concerned is the lovely use of language, but as to layering, nah. At least not on the twisty level of VN...but I am a dyed in the wool Nabokov Lover. However I am reading The Untouchable by Banville now, and while it is good, it's slow and a little repetitive, but I'm only one-third of the way through, so it may change. In the meantime I have been waylaid by Curtain...Agatha Christie. It's Poirot's last case.
Welcome to here!
Hey Marj....the sub silver is much easier on the eyeballs! |
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| unohoo |
| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:53 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 210
Location: Houston, Tx
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Wow! Looks like the forums have either picked a bit or I've just been away too long.
Haven't had much to talk about in terms of books, my reading these days in near non-existent. My most recent attempt at reading was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I must say, I had somewhat of an irrational hatred of the book and the people who purchased it when I used to cashier at a bookstore. For some reason I just knew the weirdos who bought the book were just sitting around, talking in existential circles while they smoked weed and drank box wine. (don't ask me why)
Anyway, I put all of that aside and decided to join these mysterious loons who only existed in my head and bought the book. I read about 150 pages before I decided my time would be better spent on something else. But I feel somewhat guilty, like I've given on up on a relationship that still needed to play itself to an end. But I've pulled a Costanza; and to this book I say "It's not you... it's me".
But seriously, has anyone read this book? I think I might try it again when I've consumed a couple of books. |
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