mm's meme
one book that changed your life
Liliane Haegeman introduction to government binding theory I first read (part of)it in UnL and was intrigued. Who would have thought ... oh wait this is a literature meme. Okay fiction that has changed my life ... um ... Richard Brautigan's revenge of the lawn because it was non-sensical, wayward, and trivial, and if a book can be, so can I.
one book you have read more than once
My friend Ruthie has actually only ever read one book, pride and prejudice. Inf act she is always reading it. If you asked her what she was reading she would say it was PnP. She likes it so much she sees no need to read other books. Another friend of mine, the exceedingly interesting Graham, ex-latin teacher, ex-tory candidate (!?!) nipple pierced Anglican minister asked me this question once. His was one hundred and one dalmatians! He explained he liked reviewing this Christian allegory every five years to see if his faith was still the same or had developed in anyway. I read almost all my books over and over again. In fact, all the books on my bookshelf that I haven't re-read are ones that I didn't finish the first time. I used to feel guilty about not finishing books but now I don't have time to persevere ... if that makes sense.
The choice of books to re-read depends on the mood. If I am feeling schmerzich, then Beth Nugent's city of boys excellent emotionally detached stories about the emotionally distant ... doesn't that sound appealing. Another book I read a lot is Broken April by Kadare, everyone's favourite Albanian author. I also re-read Shakespeare a lot but more about that below.
one book you would want on a desert isle
I have actually done this so I can recommend the collected works of Shazza. You always get something out of him that you haven't noticed before, and if you are shipwrecked on your isle or Johnny Depp has marooned you you can do the Graham test and watch yourself develop over the years. We all start out loving Hamlet in our teens ... the first goth, the first shoegazer, the first emo, the first existentialist whatever.... but then I guess like the actors as we grow older we can't help casting ourselves not as the Dane, but his father, or Claudio or God forbid, Polonius ... or as Eliot would say, an attendant lord, good to swell a scene or two ...
Having said the ones I most reread are Pericles and Love's Labour's lost. Can't stand Lear, can't stand Macbeth.
one book that made you laugh
Anything written by Lucy Ellman. She is hilarious and always reminds me of my favourite question what's so wrong with bitter? Would recommend man or mango to every man woman and goat, and to those who wonder what I think about in hermit like world. Also DOt in the universe though I have learnt to recommend this less widely as I forgot that it opens with a very graphic sex scene and continues in that vain despite the main character's reincarnation as a possum. I am also currently haunting the bookshops waiting for her latest doctors and nurses so will let you know when I get my own little possum paws on it (actually some say my hands are my best feature).
one book that makes you cry
the only bit of the great gatsby I like is the final para. That gets me every time. Any holocaust literature, and the recognition scene in Pericles, as unconvincing as it is. Oh and shamefully, the kids book about the rabbits who have a competition about how much they love each other ... the winner says I love you as far as the moon and back. And the other just says 'that's far' ... okay so I'm paraphrasing.
one book you wished you had written
The day lasts more than a hundred years. Like MM and her aunt cookie, I love russian lit, but the soviet and post-soviet period is more my bag. This novel is ostensibly about life on a railway crossing in the Kazakh steppes on the day Stalin dies but ranges back through central asian ethnogrpahy and forward into space travel .... it is awesome ... oh and constantly makes me cry.
one book you wish had never been written
of course books in themselves are never bad it is what people do with them. So I have to say I wish that Paul had never had written that damn letter to the Corinthians ... or was it the second one, that bit verse thirteen that is always read out at (Christian) weddings blah blah blah ... if we mean whole book, I might have to side with MM here and burn the Da Vinci Code or even Foucault's pendulum for starting the whole thing off ... But the book that probably pisses me off the most ... I mean people who piss me off when they talk about books are people who love perfume by Patrick Suskind ... that book shits me .... and don't get me started on Hardy, Tess of the Gumbyvilles.
one book I am currently reading
I just looked in my bed, I like to sleep with books well I am more used to sleeping with books than people:
Shakespeare's Richard II
Some analysis of the myth of Prometheus
The latest Cunningham novel, but I don't think I will finish it
The Yellow cross, about the last Cathars in the village of Montaillou ... my favourite piece of non-fiction
Christina Stead, The puzzleheaded girl
Victor Pelevin (go the post-soviet lit) the head of horror - a bit disappointing
Okay enough ranting. I don't link to so many people from here in my hermitage, but you readers feel free to post yours in the comments
Liliane Haegeman introduction to government binding theory I first read (part of)it in UnL and was intrigued. Who would have thought ... oh wait this is a literature meme. Okay fiction that has changed my life ... um ... Richard Brautigan's revenge of the lawn because it was non-sensical, wayward, and trivial, and if a book can be, so can I.
one book you have read more than once
My friend Ruthie has actually only ever read one book, pride and prejudice. Inf act she is always reading it. If you asked her what she was reading she would say it was PnP. She likes it so much she sees no need to read other books. Another friend of mine, the exceedingly interesting Graham, ex-latin teacher, ex-tory candidate (!?!) nipple pierced Anglican minister asked me this question once. His was one hundred and one dalmatians! He explained he liked reviewing this Christian allegory every five years to see if his faith was still the same or had developed in anyway. I read almost all my books over and over again. In fact, all the books on my bookshelf that I haven't re-read are ones that I didn't finish the first time. I used to feel guilty about not finishing books but now I don't have time to persevere ... if that makes sense.
The choice of books to re-read depends on the mood. If I am feeling schmerzich, then Beth Nugent's city of boys excellent emotionally detached stories about the emotionally distant ... doesn't that sound appealing. Another book I read a lot is Broken April by Kadare, everyone's favourite Albanian author. I also re-read Shakespeare a lot but more about that below.
one book you would want on a desert isle
I have actually done this so I can recommend the collected works of Shazza. You always get something out of him that you haven't noticed before, and if you are shipwrecked on your isle or Johnny Depp has marooned you you can do the Graham test and watch yourself develop over the years. We all start out loving Hamlet in our teens ... the first goth, the first shoegazer, the first emo, the first existentialist whatever.... but then I guess like the actors as we grow older we can't help casting ourselves not as the Dane, but his father, or Claudio or God forbid, Polonius ... or as Eliot would say, an attendant lord, good to swell a scene or two ...
Having said the ones I most reread are Pericles and Love's Labour's lost. Can't stand Lear, can't stand Macbeth.
one book that made you laugh
Anything written by Lucy Ellman. She is hilarious and always reminds me of my favourite question what's so wrong with bitter? Would recommend man or mango to every man woman and goat, and to those who wonder what I think about in hermit like world. Also DOt in the universe though I have learnt to recommend this less widely as I forgot that it opens with a very graphic sex scene and continues in that vain despite the main character's reincarnation as a possum. I am also currently haunting the bookshops waiting for her latest doctors and nurses so will let you know when I get my own little possum paws on it (actually some say my hands are my best feature).
one book that makes you cry
the only bit of the great gatsby I like is the final para. That gets me every time. Any holocaust literature, and the recognition scene in Pericles, as unconvincing as it is. Oh and shamefully, the kids book about the rabbits who have a competition about how much they love each other ... the winner says I love you as far as the moon and back. And the other just says 'that's far' ... okay so I'm paraphrasing.
one book you wished you had written
The day lasts more than a hundred years. Like MM and her aunt cookie, I love russian lit, but the soviet and post-soviet period is more my bag. This novel is ostensibly about life on a railway crossing in the Kazakh steppes on the day Stalin dies but ranges back through central asian ethnogrpahy and forward into space travel .... it is awesome ... oh and constantly makes me cry.
one book you wish had never been written
of course books in themselves are never bad it is what people do with them. So I have to say I wish that Paul had never had written that damn letter to the Corinthians ... or was it the second one, that bit verse thirteen that is always read out at (Christian) weddings blah blah blah ... if we mean whole book, I might have to side with MM here and burn the Da Vinci Code or even Foucault's pendulum for starting the whole thing off ... But the book that probably pisses me off the most ... I mean people who piss me off when they talk about books are people who love perfume by Patrick Suskind ... that book shits me .... and don't get me started on Hardy, Tess of the Gumbyvilles.
one book I am currently reading
I just looked in my bed, I like to sleep with books well I am more used to sleeping with books than people:
Shakespeare's Richard II
Some analysis of the myth of Prometheus
The latest Cunningham novel, but I don't think I will finish it
The Yellow cross, about the last Cathars in the village of Montaillou ... my favourite piece of non-fiction
Christina Stead, The puzzleheaded girl
Victor Pelevin (go the post-soviet lit) the head of horror - a bit disappointing
Okay enough ranting. I don't link to so many people from here in my hermitage, but you readers feel free to post yours in the comments
posted by Ludovic at 8:45 PM
3 Comments:
Very nice, Ludo. Your list of books you wish had never been written cracked me up.
I tried to read the Da Vinci Code and was so bored I couldn't finish it. Why do people rave?
However, I am grateful to the movie. One sad night we had a baby sitter booked so we had to go out (even though by the time it came to going out we didn't want to) and the only movie on was the Da Vinci Code. And that was so boring we left and crossed the road to the Engine Room and had Argentinian donuts dipped in bowls of liquid chocolate and had a love time. Next time you come to Auckland, we should go there. It's a surprising restaurant in the middle of pickets fences and cutsey villas.
um sounds delicious what are you doing tonight?
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