I have the same feeling about him, I’m really fascinated by such a huge personality. To abandon -and actually betray- your homeland like he did, refusing to be a part of it, in a time and place where being a citizen was probably the most important thing, a thing that actually defined you as a man, is something I admire about him. If there ever was a free man, such was he in my opinion.
I read it when I was about 12 or 13, I kind of remember it as a grotesque and very colourful story, at the time I liked it a lot.
Thank you for your equanimity regarding my comments about Vathek. I really appreciate that. I did remember that you had liked it and worried that you would be upset. However, I never moderate my literary opinions for social reasons, lest I lose credibility. Fortunately, no one in my SF book group ever takes our discussions/arguments personally. Consequently, members often gain new perspectives from one another and sometimes even evolve in their opinions about a work. Vathek is indeed a colorful book, full of authentic lore, and it’s possible I would have liked it better in my youth. Different strokes—not only for different folks, but for different times in our lives.
I forgot we had already talked about it. Anyway don’t worry, I wasn’t upset, I just expressed the impression it gave me a long time ago when I read it and the surprise at such a harsh judgment on a book I remembered as pleasant.
But to be fair, I can’t even recall the story, I just have memory of an atmosphere that maybe I wouldn’t perceive anymore rereading it. And maybe today I’d hate it too. After all, at that age I read a lot of Stephen King, whom now I can’t bear.
Also, I think there are no sacred books. If a judgment is serious and reasonable everything can and should be criticized. Otherwise there would just be fandoms.
Interesting to learn that Alcibiades was a more multifaceted person than the one I was introduced to in Plato’s Symposium. That’s where he arrives suddenly at a small private gathering looking three sheets to the wind, then delivers a lengthy and extravagant appraisal of Socrates, who’s among those present. An engaging read, although that whole mancrush thing can take some getting used to if you’ve had little or no exposure to the classics.
Almost done with the Life of Alcibiades. He was a Machiavelli before Machiavelli. Probably the most important single person in the Peloponnesian War. Although I have read Thucydides and Xenophon’s Hellenica, it is good to read about Alcibiades with the perspective and insights that a scholar can provide.
I was very happy this past Sunday to obtain a copy of the Donald Frame translation of Montaigne’s complete essays. This was what I read in high school from the city library. Now I can get back to my rereading of Montaigne. I got bogged down because the Elizabethan language of the Florio translation (Modern Library ed.) got tiresome and distracts from the substance of the essays. I had picked up that version very cheaply many years ago because I wanted a complete edition, but it is too difficult to read with pleasure.
I’ve been going through/am going through a difficult situation currently (terminally ill spouse I’m taking care of). I’ve not read for nearly 4 years despite, at one point, having read along the lines of 30+ books a year. Recently, amazingly, I’ve been dipping my toe back into it.
I’m not reading anything too deep at this point. The last book I read was The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway. I was a big UFO nut when I was 11 or so. In fact, at the time, I held the record for the youngest person ever to be given an adult library card by my library because the librarians were tired of writing notes saying, “Yes, he actually can read this.” The UFO kick died off as the critical thinking skills developed, but I found The 37th Parallel in the Library book giveaway shelf and I picked it up.
The book is reasonable for what it is. The author is the same one that did the book that was made into the move The Social Network, so he takes situations he researches and interviews for and ends up “filling in the blanks” to create what basically is a “inspired by real events” story.
The book seems to have people that either loved it or hated it. The story itself is out of this world (no pun intended) - the main character loses his job and risks his family due to his need to pursue his obsession - but the writing, I thought, was reasonable.
Currently reading Randall Monroe’s what if?. XKCD is a great comic, and I’m 1 degree away from Monroe, and I somewhat tend to do in real life what Monroe did here in print. We’ll see how it goes.
You will enjoy them, I think.
If you haven’t yet watched the TV series, I’d suggest to read first, then watch—at least for myself it was a MUCH better experience than that one book (#4 or #5 I think it was) where I first watched and only then read … quite confusing, as in the cinematization they had changed quite a few things.
Can’t wait for book #9, which I have pre-ordered last year already and which was expected for February this year
Many thanks, Trohde, but that horse has left the barn. I discovered The Expanse on television, but usually have no problem going from TV/film to the books. I do have trouble sometimes going from the books to other media. Most of the times I find the other media lacking. Thanks!
Pronto is the first of several Elmore Leonard novels I’ve read and still my favourite. Maybe there’s just something about first impressions, or maybe it’s because it appeared relatively late in Leonard’s career when he was in peak form, clearly a writer who had paid his dues. The best writers can make it look effortless, but virtually anyone who ever tried to write fiction will tell you that it rarely works that way.
The thing with Leonard is his ability to make you sympathize, albeit in a limited way, with a broad range of criminal types. Some are cold-blooded, others have a roguish charm, and a good number are simply dumb guys. In Leonard’s world they all have their day. We learn about their ambitions, frustrations and insecurities. When they commit horrific acts of violence it feels like something you should have seen coming; and indeed you may tell yourself that you did. But did you really? I’ve fallen for this trick repeatedly in Leonard’s novels, and it’s possible that I’m just thick-headed on this point. But I think it’s more likely a reflection of the author’s ability to draw readers into that world.
Another thing he seems to have mastered is the use of eccentric and seemingly trivial details to turn a mere scenario into an actual story. Pronto has plenty of these. There’s a former topless dancer who used to perform with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. A restaurant that serves Jello “with a straight face.” A world war two reminiscence featuring an appearance by the poet Ezra Pound of all people. And various cross-culture observations, such as the difference between American and Italian spaghetti, or the difficulty in finding Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew in Italy. These details become extensions and manifestations of character. Persons x, y and z appear as recognizable personalities as distinct and idiosyncratic as a fingerprint.
When a story is in such capable hands, the plot can seem almost irrelevant. For the record, Pronto is about a U.S. marshall’s search for a Miami-based bookie who’s hiding out in Italy after being pressured by both the F.B.I. and the mob. The novel moves briskly and often disarmingly, alternating between what might be called low comedy on the one hand and shockingly casual violence on the other. It’s a 370 page novel that seems to pass very quickly, and it left me wanting more.
Leonard did indeed write a sequel called Riding the Rap which for some reason I’ve never read. Another one for the list. Deciding what to read next can feel a lot like playing go. So many things clamouring for your attention, but only one stone to play!
Not that I’m actually reading it right now, but I will as soon as I can get a hold of a copy.
In the light of recent and distant events, it seems like everyone could use a little dose of this new ethic (or old princible of wabi-sabi?).
Currently reading Garry Wills’s Chesterton, which I recently acquired. I had heard good things about it over the years, but I’m finding it disappointingly jargonish, though it does have some insights here and there. I’ll be taking it on a trip I am about to make to visit my daughter at her college (as well as an old running friend who lives near her). I will also take with me Cornell Woolrich’s mystery/thriller, Fright; B. Traven’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre (one of my favorite movies); and my “new” edition of Montaigne’s essays.
Last week I finished B. Traven’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the source of one of my favorite movies. A dear friend in the science fiction community, long dead now, was the only person I ever met who didn’t like that movie. He said “it sprawled too much” and then added that the novel was the same way. He was right. They do sprawl—the book more than the movie—but I like the sprawl, by which he meant the episodic, wide-ranging narrative. Traven had a fantastic knowledge and heart for the landscape, atmosphere, and folkways of Mexico, which bring to life everything he wrote.
TSM is a masterpiece of realism, and the characters seem even more gritty and hard-bitten than in the movie. The only small flaw is three brief moments when Traven mounts a soapbox to tout communism and anticlericalism. I don’t object to this in terms of content, but because the soapbox tone intrudes badly on the omniscient narrator’s voice. We are hearing Traven’s voice rather than the narrator’s.
Comparing the movie and the book is fascinating. Any youngster who aspires to screenwriting should do so, because John Huston’s script is a model of perfect selection and judicious transformation. He cuts some of the sprawl, uses much of the outstanding dialogue, and changes the structure or staging only in a few places for dramatic cinematic reasons.
What’s next? I’ve decided to start over on my Montaigne rereading project (the third time for Book 1). The Donald Frame translation is such a pleasure to read (and has helpful footnotes) that I think I will get a lot more out of it.
