Language & Grammar discussion

Dave wrote: "Just finished rereading Camus' The Stranger in prep for group read next month. About halfway through Percy's The Moviegoer for my personal State Challenge (LA), reading Simone de Beuvoir's The Ethi..."

As I do. I just completed reading THE TUNNEL by Sabato, another gem in the existentialist roster. Unfortunately it has never gotten widespread acclaim. Only the most ardent existo fans have hoisted it on its proper pedestal, but you might check it out.

I can't but wonder how many literary gems have gone by the wayside because people read only the biggies, eg. THE STRANGER, THE PLAGUE, NO EXIT, etc. but don't get around the others, equally great but never popular.
I have repeatedly seen this throughout my life as I have discovered paintings in regional museums, hardly the biggies, that truly astounded me and I couldn't help but wonder why they had never appeared in the art history books. How many great novels have languished by the roadside, never to be exposed to the golden light of public popularity?

That's what GR is for--people like you to let people like us know that a book is a MUST read. We also need to wrest the word "existential" back from politicians, who use it as a fancy word for "existing," as in "an existential threat."

Geoffry wrote , "As I do. I just completed reading THE TUNNEL by Sabato, another gem in the existentialist roster..." Thanks for the recommendation, I'll look it up. I agree completely with the many have a "quick, where's the Mona Lisa? i'm double parked" approach to literature, the arts, & music. Having seen multiple pictures of the Mona Lisa crucified in the Louvre before a mob of tourists with selfie sticks (burning torches?) held high, I'll never go there again. Fortuneately, it is easy enough to find lots of other venues, museums, galleries, and sites on the roads less travelled that are charming and rewarding.

Newengland wrote: "We also need to wrest the word "existential" back from politicians, who use it as a fancy word for "existing," as in "an existential threat." I would go further and say the English language must wrested back from politicians.

Then here's a thread for you, Dave:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Newengland wrote: "Then here's a thread for you, Dave:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..."

Thanks.

I'm about half way through Charlotte Bronte's Villette, which I'm enjoying listening to so far. However, I will have to go back and read it. I hear great sentences or paragraphs, but can't easily skim back to them when listening.

I never got the hang of audio books. In a car they just distracted me. And at home, my thoughts bud in and take the stage, making me lose narrative threads...

Audio books are great for those who like them. I always listened in the car, often on longer trips but sometimes just around town. I like almost all of them as the readers add quite a bit of color to the book. Some books have multiple readers, when appropriate, even better. I used to live near a library and could get them often. I'm not so near one now, so I haven't had any in awhile.

I have been listening to audiobooks for years. I always keep one in the car and listen to it anytime I am driving. I don't find them distracting at all, don't lose the narrative, and find it a great way to get more reading done.

I'm a simple man. It takes little to throw me.

I'm getting simpler all the time....

Safer that way. Maybe you've seen, but I'm reading a philosophy book. I'm in good hands, even though I go where angels fear to tread. The author, Sarah Bakewell, wrote a tour de force with that book about Montaigne (who would've thunk?), so I knew I'd like this one, esp. given that I'm partial to Existentialism.

I'm reading a book that makes me need a therapist.

Is it published by the American Psychiatric Association?

I think by the British one, perhaps, or someone who likes them. It's wonderful, imaginative writing that leaves me scritchin me haid some of the time, and re-reading.

The American Psychiatric Assoc. needs to examine voters.

Reading about Heidegger in the late 20s and early 30s, I'm getting some description of the rise of Hitler and how otherwise intelligent Germans dismissed him as someone who would go away. Whoops. Wrong.

In any event, it reminded me of smart people who said a certain demagogue today was just a blip on the primary screen. Now it's
"No way he could win the general election."

The press rules in the US, because people believe them.

We are constantly scared we in India may start sliding that way given Modi & his deafening silence on certain incidents which are agitating all faceless unknown quiet law-abiding open-hearted citizens like us. Also fearful of his party goons.

You have whole different and more serious problems in your country, as do many countries. Thanks for putting things in perspective.

One commonality, though, is the rise of the right in MANY countries. Power-hungry bastards (their numbers are legion) have always been there, but it seems to ebb and flow of history favors them more in certain times than others. Fascism is a fact of life fed by ignorance, of which their is no shortage. Ever.

If Winston Churchill didn't have a full-time job as a writer, he coulda been a pretty good wartime leader.

I'm listening to volume one, The Birth of Britain of his History of the English Speaking Peoples. English history has been described as a compendium of long lists of dates, names and battles. Churchill has put a good story, well told, into his history ... as far as I've gotten, which is about anno 750 AD.

Churchill did not publish anything during the great war or WW II. He had many Jobs. He Was only Prime minister (Leader) from May 1940 to 1945 the first time and published his war speeches in 1946.

I have some histories by him but have never read any of it. They were inherited from some dead relative's library. Not sure what relative. People in the family just dump books on me. Bibliodump.

I have always been curious about Churchill's writing, due in part to his work being awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize for literature. Churchill in an interesting historical figure, but the fact that he was also a prolific writer seems relatively overlooked.

I think his role on the historical stage overshadows his writing. Think of Thomas Jefferson. He wrote a lot also, but most people are happy to think of him as president number three and author of the Declaration of Independence (yep. he's the guy forever pursuing happiness).

I am reading "Story with dogs" by Andrey Gulyashki - a Bulgarian criminal novel.

So interesting... I read Henning Mankel 's A Treacherous Paradise recently & loved it. Just finished Tana French' s Faithful Place, liked it a lot.

I am reading a Pulitzer Prize-Winner. Not like me, but there you have it....

Reading Richard Morgan 's Altered Carbon.

Haven't heard of that one. Is it about a diamond?

I keep straying from my BIG read to read poems. Not good.

No NE, it's a sci-fi. I had heard a lot of good things about it & had wanted to read it ever since I got my head around Neuromancer & Pattern Recognition. Liking it. Though apart from the sci-fi stuff it's basically a crime-thriller. With a bit of philosophy thrown in.

Philosophy is always good, given that most of it confuses me. At least as explained by "philosophers."

So true. :-) I remember simply mugging up Kant, page after page, before exams when I was in college without understanding much. Though Spinoza was worse.

Pick a philosopher, any philosopher. They talk (write) circles around me!

Ken, what PP winner are you reading?

Currently reading Revenge Wears Prada (sequel to Devil Wears Prada, which I just finished yesterday) and No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (a new favorite author of mine). Wish me luck on RWP, because DWP was a little hard to get through in most aspects. Mainly, I think, because I have seen the movie a thousand times, and the book is almost 75%-80% different than the movie (and sadly, the movie was better).

Kensley wrote: "Currently reading Revenge Wears Prada (sequel to Devil Wears Prada, which I just finished yesterday) and No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (a new favorite author of mine). Wish me luck on RWP,..."

Good luck on RWP, Kensley! ;-)

And Sharon, it's All the Light We Cannot See.

I read that. Thought it was good.

The one I'm reading now, The Year Without a Purchase, has some great lessons in it, not all of them directly written about, but it's not a book I'd recommend to all heartily. It's humorous, though, and that helps a bunch.

Ken wrote: "Kensley wrote: "Currently reading Revenge Wears Prada (sequel to Devil Wears Prada, which I just finished yesterday) and No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (a new favorite author of mine). Wish..."

Thanks! Currently 1st chapter tackled and I haven't regretted it so far! :)

Halfway through Once upon a time by Marina Walker. The book is about how Fairy tales evolved and spread across borders, over time, how they were collected & then changed from stories told by elders of tribes to pass on wisdom, by firesides to being consciously collected with nationalism in mind. How that was put to political use but could not be kept bound & crossed borders again, how times dictated that they be sanitised & made fit only for consumption of children. But then psychoanalysis happened, and they were portrayed in a variety of art forms - musicals films theatre, rewritten in modern versions etc. Fascinating study.

How interesting, Sonali.

We are all the same but different. One need only look as far as a fairy tale. And I'm sure the Cinderella tale gets treatment there because there seem to be a million versions.

Cinderella certainly, but also various gruesome versions of Sleeping Beauty & Red Riding Hood. The Arabian Nights, Indian folk tales and how the genres affected European & English writers... it's all very interesting. I am only halfway through though..

Didn't a famous Englishman translate the 1,001 Nights? So famous that I cannot recall his name...?

I think it was Sir Richard Burton, because we had a hardback copy at home. I remember being confused & then amused by his name, confusing the two famous Burtons.

Ah, yes. Liz's 10th husband.

Ken wrote: "Ah, yes. Liz's 10th husband."

Or 11th? Or 12th? (I'm her eighth old man, I'm Henry, Henry the 8th I am, I am!...)

There are also two literary Winston Churchills out there, the one who led Great Britain through WWII and an American one who wrote a number of historical novels. They were contemporaries and if they did not meet in person (I can't remember if they did or not), they did correspond with each other.

That's fascinating Sally. Literary doppelganger...

Only so many names to go around. And talent!