The Official Unofficial Book Group Book Discussion thread
1 lurker |
57 watchers
Aug 2019
11:15am, 19 Aug 2019
15,057 posts
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Sharkie
I mentioned Geoff Dyer when there was much rattle on here about fave rave travel writing, can't remember if anyone picked up on it. You 'might' enjoy one of his few (three?) novels Dio. Paris Trance was my favourite book of the 90s, or at least up there. |
Aug 2019
11:27am, 19 Aug 2019
18,384 posts
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Columba
Finished The Roman Persuasion (it may have been on the Book Thread that I reported that I was reading it, rather than this one - but I expect we all read both threads) and it did not improve. Seems to be mainly a vehicle for long discussions of philosophical/political/theological viewpoints of Christianity in Europe, all linked to the Spanish civil war. Disguised as a novel. Not recommended. Probably out of print anyway; mine is a second-hand copy. Now moved on to a Susan Hill I found on my shelf, which I can't remember having read before. May have been my mother's. |
Aug 2019
11:35am, 19 Aug 2019
32,992 posts
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Night-owl
I have started reading Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. Was a slow start wasn't sure about it but warming up to it.
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Aug 2019
3:03pm, 19 Aug 2019
39,437 posts
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Diogenes
lareviewofbooks.org Extract from the article above citing part of one of the sections I wanted to share: 'But it is in 1998’s Out of Sheer Rage that Dyer truly gets his knives out. The book describes his failed attempts to write a scholarly study of D. H. Lawrence. As he drudges through a Longman Critical Reader on the author, he finds himself increasingly angered by its contents: trendy theoretical titles like “Lawrence, Foucault and the Language of Sexuality” and “Radical Indeterminacy: a post-modern Lawrence.” He wonders: "How could these people with no feeling for literature have ended up teaching it, writing about it? […] writing like that kills everything it touches. That is the hallmark of academic criticism: it kills everything it touches. Walk around a university campus and there is an almost palpable smell of death about the place because hundreds of academics are busy killing everything they touch." In Dyer’s mind, the academic conference may be the worst offender of all. He goes on to describe his horror on meeting an academic who specialises in Rainer Maria Rilke: "You don’t teach Rilke, I wanted to say, you kill Rilke! You turn him to dust and then you go off to conferences where dozens of other academic-morticians gather with the express intention of killing Rilke and turning him to dust. Then, as part of the cover-up, the conference papers are published, the dust is embalmed and before you know it literature is a vast graveyard of dust, a dustyard of graves." ' |
Aug 2019
10:54pm, 19 Aug 2019
40,860 posts
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McGoohan
Dio - just (slightly) catching up. I finished the Yoga one. It isn't as good as Sheer Rage but I still really enjoyed it. It's quite nihilistic in comparison (maybe that should be *more* nihilistic!)
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Aug 2019
6:49am, 20 Aug 2019
29,008 posts
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LindsD
I like that, Dio
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Aug 2019
8:46am, 20 Aug 2019
15,061 posts
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Sharkie
Can loan you Out of Sheer Rage if you fancy it, Linds. I'm 50 pages back in to Paris Trance which is interesting. Will I like it as much twenty yers on, twenty years older? WHY did I like it so much? Will I now find Dyer just too self indulgent and a bit blokey? (Recognised) self indulgence is part of the point ... let's see! And I DID spot echoes of Stewart Lee! That sentence should be turned on its head. Obvs. |
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Aug 2019
8:48am, 20 Aug 2019
29,015 posts
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LindsD
Yes pls.
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Aug 2019
11:07am, 20 Aug 2019
39,455 posts
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Diogenes
Thanks McG. Interested in Sharkie’s conclusions and Linds take on GD
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Aug 2019
11:07am, 20 Aug 2019
39,456 posts
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Diogenes
Thanks McG. Interested in Sharkie’s conclusions and Linds take on GD
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