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I'm also rereading Tristram Shandy - and why not, it's a fun by difficult book. difficult for a couple reasons:

1. because Sterne works in all sorts of abstruse references to literature, law, religion and plenty of other things. this stuff isn't so much fun for me.
2. because it's a deliberately complicated narrative full of asides, nested stories (with various sub-narrators under Tristram), and plots that are spread out with long digressions in between. This is where most of the fun comes from, but it's also easy to get lost. To give a taste of this here's my brief summary of just the first 11 chapters:

1 tristram narrates the story of his own conception being interrupted by his mother asking about the winding of a clock.
2 notions about the delicacy of conception, involving animal spirits and homunculi.
3 tristram's uncle toby mentioned for the first time, as a source for much of the story; his father's grievance over the clock-winding-interruption-incident mentioned again.
4 to pacify readers who need to know everything at once: connection between the shandy family clock and sex explained obliquely.
5 tristram's date of birth: 11/5/1718. promises to tell how he was born in a later chapter.
6 vacillates on giving too much information at once, asks the reader's leave to tell his story in his own way.
7 on the parson's wife's philanthropic mission to make a midwife of a fecund widow, and the parson's consent: [Didius' amendment to midwife licenses?] thrown in as an example of the all-important hobby horse.
8 on hobby horses generally.
9 [dedication] aspects of the book pertaining to hobby horses dedicated to the reader (promise given to assign this dedication in the name of whatever reader pays him and attach it to the front of future editions of the book); the rest of the book is dedicated to the moon.
10 on yorick the parson's hobby of riding horses, related to his sponsoring the midwife which saves him the expense of horses for transport of pregnant women and doctors, freeing up money for other philanthropic endeavors. promises to pick up the midwife's story after a bit more about yorick.
11 speculation on yorick's being descended from Hamlet's Yorick (the court jester), and mention of yorick's genial nature and love of practical jokes.

Ay, but it's fun finding out what cuckoo conceit is gonna inhabit the next nest isn't it, and how the next bit of feathered phrasing will be preened

Shandy is one of those weird ones where I almost totally engaged with the vibe he sparked off (despite the dust of the years making it a decipher job) and was happy to dig through the footnotes to get the references. (Contrasting totally with Swift's Tale of the Tub, which I think you mentioned earlier feels very one note/tedious in comparison. I'm looking forward to reading the Voltaire recos you mentioned where the satire's still alive btw )

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I haven't read Tale of the Tub, I was thinking of reading Gulliver's Travels somewhat soon though -- I remember liking that. Candide is another book that I'd re-read, hope you enjoy it.

I'm certainly not knocking Shandy or Sterne. This is my second read-through and won't be the last. On the whole I like the digressions best when they eventually lead somewhere unexpected but logical (an early example so far is his explanation of the regularity of his fathers habits which led to the unexpected connection between clock-winding and copulation for his mother). Sterne can be very subtle, so much so that it can also be easy to miss stuff (especially with all the digressions) and when the stuff that he has submerged is cute and perverse all the better (I giggle like a school girl at stuff like that).

That said I also like a lot of the devices and (gags?) that he has shoehorned in for seemingly less of a reason cogent to the story, perhaps just to interact with or lead you on (i really liked the dedication to the reader, some 35 pages into the book).

The first time I read TS I knew I liked it for these things but it did end up wearing me down by the end. You know, after about 6-700 pages, I think I had just lost Sterne's trail.

I agree, footnotes are nice. I always read those when they're included. I saw a nice annotated version at the library which when I leafed through it seemed to have different engravings -- like the marbled pages -- than my copy, which is hardcovered with a nice binding - I went for durability over helpful supplementary material, figuring I'd probably want to read it again. I'd be interested in comparing mine with other editions, especially the engravings and diagrams and things like that.

I'm also reading another old book that has a complex nesting structure: The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Count Jan Potocki -- characters meeting, telling stories about other characters who come and go in the frame story, sometimes contradicting each other. It also has an outer frame story about the coincidental finding and reading of the inner one by descendants of the narrator. The aim seems quite different and more organized than TS.

All the inner stories are very entertaining in their own right too: bandits, ghosts, pirates, monks, incestuous twin babes who claim to be the long lost cousins of the narrator/anti-hero and want to marry him... pretty awesome and weird and strongly recommend that as well, while I'm at it.

Yeah to be honest I think he loses his own trail, what with the serialisation and that probably extending further than he ever expected to get (& the 'life the universe and everything' nature of his ponderings - there's only so much cunning cross-referencing and playful knot-tying you can do )

Saragossa looks interesting too. Cheers for the reco

Just finished the first of these -



- Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars and it's pretty awesome. In memory of a certain pimp whose rating system I always liked I'm going to give it

The two jewish teenager-protagonists (the narrator and his friend Alan Mendelsohn) have a series of adventures through and in which they learn to move objects and control people with their minds. Eventually they're able to tune in and out of an alternate dimension over which our boring every day reality is superimposed - only to learn that other dimensions are full of idiots and making absent-minded people do funny dances isn't really all that special. It ends in a sort of anticlimax and without ever fully explaining the Martian business, which is fine. It still achieves the best thing any fiction can hope to, its fictional world becoming real through reading.

Just started 'Salem's Lot.

Just started re-reading Friday by Robert Heinlein.

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"The dog is the god of frolic." ~ Beecher

"Exit, pursued by a bear." ~

A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking) - 5/5
Picked this up in Barnes & Nobles looking for a Flash intruction book. Couldnt put the book down, so I took it home, much to the thrill of the desk clerk, who had a mini orgasm that someone in the town would read Hawking as well. It made me worried about the place I chose to live. Was quite impressed with his easy writing style, and most importantly, his candor. Surprising, and worthy of respect.

What I Did For Love (Susan Elizabeth Phillips) - 3/5
SEP is the only pure romance author I'll read, but the woman hardly writes, so I checked out her latest. Basically in the tradition of all of her books, with the unlikely heroine, stud muffin, and motley crew of endearing characters you just know she'll write about in later years. One thing I will give SEP as an author is that she does a lot of her prep work for her next book in the book she currently puts out. Must help take work out of writing!

Fear Itself (Walter Mosley) - 5/5
I love reading WM, but I have to take him in small doses as his books always get me fired up with that helpless rage about racism, and the ills of the world. I normally do 1-2 of his books a year, because I cant take any more than that. I want to say his writing is raw, but without the gratuitous vulgarity and senseless violence that accompany many male authored "gritty" crime stories. Its like viewing the world as it was then through an unbiased, uncensored lens, and he doesnt editorialize it by prettying it up, or making it something its not. In this way its disconcerting, but believable. Almost to the degree that I wonder whether his stories are semi-autobiographical.

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something witty goes here......

Molotov's Magic Lantern

Drawn not just from ten years' residence but a lifelong entanglement with all things Russian, this travelogue through time delves into forgotten books, steps back to trace the stories etched on buildings, and generally jumps from invigorating banyas to frozen political wastelands, via 'grey haired' rivers, with fluidity and skill. Dostoevsky, Chekov and their ilk act as cultural waypoints in a landscape thick with political intrigue. Stalin doodles wolves on the margins of history, mystics dress in plain clothes, and geography churns Tsars and 'salt of the earth' alike. Sometimes she takes on so much you feel she's like an Arctic painter she mentions, spreading himself desperately over a small iceberg in the hope that it will not fragment. Miraculously, she does manage to blend all the elements together, and create a distinctive impression of these varied and sweeping lands.

On the downside, any book that opens with an untranslated French quote is off to bad start with me, & Polonsky's 'journey in Russian history' meanders dangerously close to being too stuffy, bookish, and self involved at times. She's a bibliophile tracing the marks left in the collections of other obsessive readers, as much as a stranger absorbing the cultures and politics of a diverse foreign land. Her writing is 'opulent and spare' in the style of the Lef journos she mentions, documenting facts, but also decorated by poetic observations of contemporary Russia. You do sometimes wonder if we really need to know that the neat businessman was splashed by the bus, or what local dish she had for dinner, but often it does help demonstrate the emotional prism through which she's viewing these environs, recognising that this is a personalised journey as well as an analysis of convoluted times. And hey, when the person in question is interested in everything from spy stories, to seditious poetry transferred via pencil and fire, to rumours of Putin believing in a hallowed hollow earth, she's alright by me

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My wife picked this up for me today, it is the 2nd book in the Tiffany trilogy in Discworld. It was the only one I didnt have

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

I only read Reaper Man from Mr. Pratchett, and absolutely loved it! Gotta get 'em all...


Btw, just finished The Dark Tower (Stephen King)series this week, and I'm still stunned. Don't know if I'll find another book series nearly as great as that one

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"All these moments will be lost in time. Like tears... in rain."

I am a huge fan of the Discworld series I have all the books apart from the side line books ie The Science Books and the Year Books. Terry Pratchett is my favorite auther without a doubt, I am loving the Guard books they really are great. Ive read Reaper Man I thought it was a fantastic book

My brother in law is a massive Discworld fan also and he has also read all the Dark Tower books and he is trying to get me into them aswell. Im sure I will pick them at some point as whet he has told me it really sounds like a series I would thoroughly enjoy.

The Science Books are classy Newt. The sci-chapters are genuinely dry/hard going at first but they get into their stride, and are full of QI-style fascinating stuff over time. It's a really ingenious strategy to use the Discworld world to see our own universe from the outside as well - the wizards have loads of fun poking their fingers into it. Think of all the pointy-hatted & ape-based shenanigans you're missing out on if you don't give 'em a try

Cheers man for the recommendation I really want to give these a go, well tbh anything Discworld and I want to get it My mate has got the two different maps of Discworld framed up in his computer room and they really are stunning to look at Im also looking into the year books aswell they seem interesting.

I have "The Art of Discworld" which is a great book to read aswell, it has lots of different drawings of the Charactors in the series ranging from Nanny Ogg to Commander Vimes, and also they have information about each charactor aswell. I love the artwork of Discworld aswell it really is unique and stunning to look at.



It was a great buy and only £9.99 on play.com so it is really resonable. Have you read/looked through this book?

Nope hadn't heard of it. I've always liked Kidby's cover art for the books tho, think that's possibly what first attracted me to the series as a teen. I like how he captures a lot of the plot incidents in a jumble of events, without giving too much away.

It would be interesting to see if anyone could make one of the books work as a film (I missed the sky feature length TV attempt). You always have that self-constructed version of how you think they should look tho - especially with Kirby painting nigh every character on the cover . The Rincewind in my head definitely owes a lot to his threadbare depiction of him

Kidbys artwork on the covers are amazing, he did capture a lot of the plot and I love looking at the detail he has done on the covers after Ive read the book and it really helps with the picture you already have in your mind about what is happening in the story.

I do highly recommend you watch The Hogfather and The Colour of Magic they are awesome mate Obviously there are quite a few things missing from the books to film as The Colour of Magic has The Light Fantastic in there aswell so cramming the two books into the feature was going to be difficult but fairplay it really is great seeing the Disc come to life on the small screen.

I thought David Jason played Rincewind to a tee and he also played Albert in The Hog Father.

The Road
By Cormac McCarthy

I posted a fair amount about this in The Shoutbox already, so I'll keep it short: wasn't terribly enamored with the lack of punctuation, but I got used to it. I tend not to like such dense prose, either, but it alternated between difficult and superfluous, and genuinely beautiful.

I'm not entirely sure if The Road has much of a point. There are meaningful themes, to be sure, but it's hard to determine if they add up to any one thing, or are just there to lend depth and encourage speculation. There is resolution of a sort, but in another sense, very little. I can't say much without divulging more about the post-apocalyptic story, so I won't be any more specific.

I will say that, as horrific as some of the episodes in The Road are, they never feel merely intended to shock, because they all ring disturbingly true. The terrible things that the man and his son come across are upsettingly plausible. If humanity were ever presented with the circumstances of this world, it's not hard to imagine it devolving into the horrific landscape that McCarthy has envisioned.

I don't know if I'd recommend this. If you enjoy prose for its own sake, or enjoy McCarthy's style, it's a no-brainer. If you prefer that your stories have firmer resolutions and messages, not so much. It's certainly worth your time if you appreciate good writing in and of itself and want a somewhat broader cross-section of literature, as well, which was the perspective I was approaching it from.

I read Blood Meridian by McCarthy three years ago. I don't remember it being particularly dense, just that it was very light on psychology and dialog, and heavy on setting and almost mythological violence and action. The ending was cryptic as hell, but parts were very gripping and memorable.

Heartbreak and Triumpth - Shawn Michaels Definately worth the read if your a wrestling/Shawn Michaels fan. I enjoyed it.

just starting Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox - I dont know what it is about this guy. Whether its because he is the sort of guy you would love to have a drink with or the clear, simple and yet honest way he communicates. Its inspirational, for me he isnt so much Michael J. Fox the actor with parkinsons. Its Michael J. Fox the man. Parkinsons may have inspired him to do what he has done but its the spirit of the man that achieved it.

Last weekend I finished re-reading Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abe.

Abe comes up with insane problems and then follows them through to their logical conclusions, in the form of a story. Since his problems are totally nuts perhaps it's not too surprising they don't get solved.

In this one a product developer wins an office competition by proposing the meaningless idea of a "kangaroo notebook" and is told to pursue it, but that's the closest anything ever comes to going right for him. His real troubles begin when he goes to see a dermatologist because he finds radishes sprouting from the pores on his shins. The rest of this story is his unwilling trip to "hell" to treat his "condition" by relaxing in the hot springs there.

That description makes Kangaroo Notebook sound more normal and fixed than it actually is, because his new circumstances seem to unravel at every opportunity. Meanwhile the narrator's thoughts keeps wanting to bring in absurd recollections of his life to account for his unaccountable new circumstances.

A couple of things do eventually crop up -- such as his fixation on three sisters -- that could have become some sort of legitimate kernal of driving passion in another book. They can't here though, since his thoughts on them are about as comprehending as his thoughts about the "novel" he inherited from his estranged father (which is arguably a fictionalized retelling of the author's plot to blow up a famous department store using explosives made out of the genitals of a male and a female squid).

At every turn of a chapter the narrator gets offered some new assistance or advice that turns out to be completely unhelpful or to even makes things worse. At one point he moves in with a nurse (one of the "sisters") and her boyfriend/lodger, a hairy American or Australian (it's never definitively determined which). The Gaijin is a self-styled karate expert calling himself "Master Hammer Killer", whose idea of helping out the narrator -- who has recently dislocated his jaw -- is a friendly karate chop to the back of the skull that sends him to the hospital. The penultimate chapter takes place in this hospital from "hell", where patients gang up and draw straws to exterminate their own, in order to cut down the noise level.

This was Abe's last novel before he died, and it's tempting to read a lot of anxiety about death in there, except that 1) Secret Rendezvous, which he published two decades earlier, is possibly even more disturbing and 2) There's no real self-pity or reflection evident in the main character-narrator.

It's hard not to feel bad for him though, unlikeable as he is. When he washes up on the shores of the river of hell, he gets offered a job as an officially-sanctioned beggar with a troupe of child demons (among them another one of the sisters) singing "help me please!" to elderly tourists. In payment he gets to bathe in the hot springs (but only at night so that the other visitors don't have to see his shins) and eat free sandwiches, which are totally indigestible for the narrator, who is by then repulsed at the mere thought of eating radishes that don't sprout from his own shins. It's the little details that make Abe's vision of hell so awful.

I'm also more than half way done with The Mysteries of Udolpho and Anna Karenin