Good reads

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Patrick Modiano The Night Watch. The 2nd part of my holiday reading was not nearly as satisfying as the 1st, with another return to an author that I had only recently discovered. Last year I read Nobel-winner Modiano's Suspended Sentences and loved the familiarity of Paris' streets and back-waters. The Night Watch was an altogether different experience and while the same geographical familiarity was present, the style and substance of this short novel were stranger and less palatable.

Set in Paris just after the Nazi occupation, this is a not-very credible tale of collaboration and resistance with a largely incomprehensible and repulsive cast of characters. Give it a miss.

[rowan]

Patrick Modiano The Night Watch. The 2nd part of my holiday reading was not nearly as satisfying as the 1st, with another return to an author that I had only recently discovered. Last year I read Nobel-winner Modiano's Suspended Sentences and loved the familiarity of Paris' streets and back-waters. The Night Watch was an altogether different experience and while the same geographical familiarity was present, the style and substance of this short novel were stranger and less palatable.

Set in Paris just after the Nazi occupation, this is a not-very credible tale of collaboration and resistance with a largely incomprehensible and repulsive cast of characters. Give it a miss.

Sounds awful

[Numbers]

John Niven - No Good Deed

Very good, the basic premise is a man is queuing to get into a posh restaurant and is asked for some change by a beggar, the beggar subsequently turns out to be a mate of his from College and University who he feels duty bound to give a hand up to to.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Susan McKay's Bear in Mind These Dead. This Ewart-Biggs shortlisted study of some of the thousands of victims of our Troubles is harrowing and at times shameful. I'd not be fully aligned with McKay's biases, but she makes a poignant study of the aftermath of hate-fueled violence while leaving the reader to make their own judgements about the perpetrators. Too much of it's content was 'news' rather than history for this to be a comfortable read for me.

[rowan]

Fascinating topic:

Despite the fragmented and incomplete historical record, experts pretty much agree that some popular beliefs about Jewish history simply don’t hold up: there was no sudden expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for instance. What’s more, modern Jews owe their ancestry as much to converts from the first millennium and early Middle Ages as to the Jews of antiquity.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/books ... ll&mcubz=0

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Sorry mate, but have you read the book? Are you recommending the book? I find that you too frequently post links to extracts from reviews that are almost entirely political in some context and appear to be in pursuit of a campaign or campaigns that are frankly not what this thread is intended for.

With the exception of your first post on this thread, which I found to be as intriguing as it was revealing, you now appear to do little more than post lists of obscure books that you have not read (And it is unlikely anyone else outside of a very narrow political mindset will ever read) and links to overtly one-eyed reviews of polemical nonsense.

I read a lot and I hope that my posts offer MY view of the books I read in order to steer people towards those that I have enjoyed and away from those I have not. Read the thread from 1st to last and you will see that most of us treat it like a book club and discuss things WE have read rather than reviews of what others unconnected to us have read. You will also see that we accept and trust each other's recommendations and some of us go on to get hold of copies, read them and contribute to the debate. I offer your views on Stoner as an example. Many of us who post on here have read it following the recommendations of others on here. You dismissed it after reading a few comments on a newspaper website, that were clearly made by others who had not read it.

I now expect any post on here (Not just mine) to be followed almost immediately by one of yours which adds little and, I am quite convinced, diverts others from visiting the thread since your name is constantly the last post - as it is on several threads. I am not one to dictate who may post what, but I think that many of your posts on this thread contribute little and could perhaps be better placed on the more politically steamed sites.

[rowan]

In a nutshell, what you're saying is that I don't take this thread seriously enough for you. I stumbled across an article (about a book) that I thought was interesting, so shared the opening paragraph (not the entire article, you will note) in case anybody else was interested and wished to discuss the topic. That's what chat forums are for. In my view, your approach is far too serious for a chat board and you'd probably be better off writing a blog somewhere - and maintaining your holier than thou stance in that environment. In saying that, I've always taken the trouble to read your reviews, because they interest me, and that's why I've commented on many of them. The last thing I imagined was you would actually take exception to this because I hadn't read them. In fact, the extraordinary degree of over-sensitivity you have just displayed suggests some political agenda of your own.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

I have no doubt that you read what is posted on here and there are a number of times when you have responded with a discourse that is connected to books that have been read by people who post on here. However, suggesting that I take the thread too seriously in the light of several of your more isolated (In terms of adding to or generating debate) posts is a startling case of pot/kettle blackery.

Too often, you stumble upon articles of such a one-eyed polemical nature that they would clearly be better suited to the politics thread than on a thread that is intended to share views on literature of high and low variety and much in between. I would suggest that many of your posts say a great deal more about where on the web it is you tend to spend your time stumbling than of your understanding of what it is normal people actually bother their arses to read.

I mean this in no disparaging way, but given the difficulties you have in sensing the timbre of threads on such light-hearted issues as reading and funny images, might you consider spending less time on here and more on the politics thread?

Further still, have you ever considered seeking professional advice as to where exactly on the autistic spectrum you might sit?

[rowan]

Well, don't misunderstand me, I think it's great that you do take the thread so seriously. It's your aversion to others not doing so which seems a little out of place on a chat forum which, from what I can see, receives very little use. I don't actually like the political threads, which is why I don't use them anymore. & the NY Times review I posted the opening paragraph and link to was connected to a thoroughly researched book on one of the most pertinent issues of our time. Dismissing the content as one-eyed was a little rich as well, given it was hugely popular in the country whose people it most directly concerned.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

You and I share a similar, though clearly not identical, view of where Israel sits in terms of the hierarchy of the naughty step. While I think it perfectly reasonable to discuss the qualities of a book by Illan Pappe that we have read or intend to read or the nature of Naomh Chomsky's response to questions from an audience at a literary festival which some of us attended, I suspect that we are a very small minority when it comes to interest in these things.

However, posting a link to a book which takes an extreme view in questioning the foundations of the Jewish religion - a book that you have not read but merely find 'interesting' - falls somewhat outside the boundaries intended of the Music and Entertainment thread. I am not sure if you were posting here before MikeWig passed, but the purpose of naming this thread after him was that it would stand as a bit of a memorial to him and his ability to navigate life without ever pissing anyone off. I am sure, that on reflection you will accept that any debate you hoped to generate by posting the link was likely to be argumentative and therefore better suited to another space?

As to an aversion to others not taking the thread seriously, again I suggest you read it from first to last. I am as capable of posting twattery on here as I am on any other thread and encourage others to do so.

In the nature that the thread was intended, I propose to post no further response on this matter.

[rowan]

I'd still disagree with you on a couple of points there. But I'll just reiterate that I posted the link in hope of generating a little discussion which would provide further insight on the book itself; not to simply make some crude political point of my own.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Dominic Lieven Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia. I have long been intending to try and understand the part that Russia played in the build up to the Great War and particularly what role she played in the July Crisis of 1914. I am sure there must be a more accessible work out there that would have done the job . Although it is highly acclaimed and won the Pushkin House Prize, Lieven's history is not that easy to digest and frankly spends too much of its 370 pages in preamble and too few on the Crisis, the War and the actual end of Tsarist Russia. As a History Graduate who usually likes this depth and rigour of study I am surprised that I found it so turgid; but I did.

[rowan]

Good review on a couple of Orhan Pamuk books which I haven't got around to reading yet: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/25 ... red-woman/

[OptimisticJock]

How do you know they're good reviews if you haven't read it?

Anyone into Stephen King (I know it's not high brow enough for you sarge)? Reading the dark tower but don't really like the style it's written.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

I've read a couple of Stephen King - er, no hang on. Is he the bloke with the funny voice in the wheelchair?

Thought The Shinning was pretty good but I read it after watching the film so perhaps not as good as I thought. Same with Misery, which I thought was better than the film by some shift. I tell ye, Jock, I've even read some of James Herbert's early stuff. I do low-brow when I need to clean out the mental bilges.

[rowan]

How do you know they're good reviews if you haven't read it?

That's quite possibly the most stupid comment I've ever read in my entire life. It's like asking how do you know an article about Kenya is good if you haven't been there?

[SerjeantWildgoose]

He's got a point Rowan. How do you know an article about Kenya is good if you've never been there? It could be a complete load of bollocks. Well written, but a complete load of bollocks nonetheless?

[rowan]

He's got a point Rowan. How do you know an article about Kenya is good if you've never been there? It could be a complete load of bollocks. Well written, but a complete load of bollocks nonetheless?

He doesn't have a point, and you know it well. The article was interesting, that makes it good. An article about Kenya can be exceedingly interesting, even if you haven't been there, and that makes it good. It was a very, very stupid comment to make, and juvenile to boot.

[OptimisticJock]

How do you know they're good reviews if you haven't read it?

That's quite possibly the most stupid comment I've ever read in my entire life. It's like asking how do you know an article about Kenya is good if you haven't been there?

I wouldn't because I've never been there.

[rowan]

Then you'd be missing the point of the article if it was designed to encourage you to do so, wouldn't you?

The article about Pamuk's latest novels was designed to encourage people to read them. That's the nature of reviews

[OptimisticJock]

That doesn't make it good. It could be completely wide of the mark yet you have still been encouraged to read the book.

[rowan]

Exactly. It's subjective. & my opinion was that it was a good review. I actually went out looking for the books after reading it, but was only able to locate one - and that was an expensive hardback edition. So I'll wait a few more months until I can get them both in cheaply paperback form

[OptimisticJock]

But you don't know it's a good review or not until you've read it. Gaining your interest doesn't make it a good review.

[rowan]

Complete drivel, mate. You made a stupid comment to start with, for motives which had nothing to do with either the review or the literature it described, and we both know it.

[OptimisticJock]

is it bollocks. Until you've actually read the book you've no idea how good the review is. Of course you are perfectly entitled to blindly believe a review because it fits inline with your political views but don't be surprised when people laugh at you.