September's Studious Search For Sonorous Snippets

[GOLLUM]

Nurudin Farah has won multi african,italian, english language awards. He is one of those one in million chance Nobel Prize potential winners from Africa. Anyway he comes from my own country and he tells stories that is personal to every modern Somali who knows anarchy, dictatorship, ancient traditions...

Can you me PM arabic writer names so we dont go too much off topic here ? I can find africa, western authors, central asia ones like Turkey but arabic literature outside Egypt is practically unknown to me.

Farah sounds like a fine person as much as a wonderful writer to me. Interesting as I don't really know any Somali writers.

I can certainly provide you with some Arabic authors I have read and others I am aware of by reputation. I can give you both modern Arabic and Ancient/Classic Arabic writers. The fact you can speak Arabic and have a deeper appreciation of the culture means you will be able to go a lot further than myself into this area as I rely more on word of mouth and English translations which will inevitably vary in quality.

As I alluded to earlier I can also ask Nesa who has a strong awareness of world culture including of course Literature to provide further details.

Cheers.

 

[antiloquax]

Just finished "Swan Song". Very enjoyable. Haven't decided what fiction to read next ...

 

[D_Davis]

Almost done with Ice Trilogy, about 100 pages to go. It has been an incredibly rewarding read, one of the best books I've read all year, perhaps of all time - will probably be making my top 50 list.

One thing I find remarkable is how much more I want to read and know about the world in the book. There are things that are only touched upon that could make amazing books on their own, and I would love to read those books.

The only other thing I can think of to compare it to is the Tet Corporation in the Dark Tower series. That whole sub-plot was among my favorites, and I loved the details in book six. However, I would love to read an entire series about the Tet Corporation, it's members, how it was formed, and what it did. The same thing can be said about Sorokin's book - I'd love to know more about the Ice corporation, www.icehammervictims.org, and all sorts of neat little things.

Sorokin has done something amazing with this book. I wish the books was non-fiction, so that I could read all about the people, places, and evens on wiki and other sources.

 

[HareBrain]

Recently bought two long-ish YA novels as part of a 3-for-2 deal. Oddly, both turned out to be written in first-person present tense, and feature Earth humans in unpleasant futures.

First was The Knife of Letting Go by Patrick Ness, which won the Guardian children's fiction award but which I tossed aside a hundred pages in, the second fifty being an epic battle with indifference. Nothing came alive for me -- the personality-bypass protagonist (who never narrates anything in twenty words where a hundred will do), the dog who says "poo", the setting, the language, the central mystery (which I flicked to the end to find the answer to, and which was barely worth the three minutes that took). I'm baffled by the reviews it's had.

Next, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I haven't yet finished but have to tear myself away from every time I pick it up. I was a bit dubious about it in advance, thinking the premise horrible, unlikely and vaguely exploitative, but was won over almost at once by the incredibly engaging main character. And although Collins hasn't tried to do anything interesting with the first-person-present form, it isn't distracting either, unlike Ness's rather hamfisted (in my opinion) approach. I can see myself zipping through the rest of this and its sequels in a couple of weeks.

 

[GOLLUM]

Sorokin has done something amazing with this book. I wish the books was non-fiction, so that I could read all about the people, places, and evens on wiki and other sources.

Damn...having the Sorokin trilogy and being a fan of King's Dark Tower (books and graphic novels) I will need to push this towards the very apex of my TBR mountain.

Thanks for the reports....

 

[j d worthington]

Somewhat under protest, I am currently reading Deathwish World, by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing... which I gather was something Reynolds did not complete, and was finished by Ing. There are some nice things here, but I can't say I'm particularly impressed. I think it might make a better film or mini-series than it does a novel, though there would have to be some serious trimming and ejecting the "infodump" which seems to be such a heavy part of the earlier portions of the novel.

However, as this is a favorite of a friend of mine, I'll go ahead with it; I may be surprised, and end up liking it tremendously... but I'm afraid it's going to have to pull quite a few rabbits out of a factory's worth of hats to manage that one at this point....

 

[D_Davis]

Ice Trilogy, by Vladimir Sorokin

The Ice Trilogy is a huge and sprawling metaphysical, science-fiction, satirical epic, and one of the best books I've ever read. The narrative spans over one hundred years, told from the point of view of dozens of people, and mixes in elements of every genre from horror to erotica, and from conspiracy thriller to historical fiction. And what's more, it's all written with the skill of a master, and translated with perfection.

The plot is rather simple: there are 23,000 rays of light that created the universe. These light beings created the Earth, and then accidentally became trapped here. Throughout the eons of time and the course of evolution, the rays of light were reincarnated in humanity. A cosmic event awakens the collective ancient memories of these beings and thus they try to reunite all 23,000 of their brothers and sisters (forming the Brotherhood of Light) together in order to escape the Earth, and bring about the end of the world of the meat machines (their term for human beings).

To accomplish this, the brotherhood must infiltrate and utilize the various forms of government-rule and social institutions, thus building a labyrinth of conspiracy and urban-myth, as they participate in all manner of covert and public operations; the Brotherhood uses everything from Nazi fascism during WWII to VR Videogames to accomplish their goal. And at each stage of their century-long operation, the chilling reality of their actions becomes more tangible and disturbing.

What is most remarkable is how well Sorokin tells his story. He captures the unique and individual voice of dozens of characters, and tells a compelling story that is practically devoid of a central protagonist or dramatic drive. There are scenes of action and drama, and characters and moments that I will remember, but Sorokin's tale is not a personal one. It is grand and sweeping. He is telling the story of a large group of people who act as one. Yes we get small individual tales and testimonies throughout, but this is not a book about a single or group of protagonists doing certain plot-driven things.

And even at seven hundred pages, Sorokin has left me wanting more. A lot more. I want to more more about the Brotherhood and their actions, about how they accomplished certain things, and more about certain actions. I feel as though there is an entire trilogy of unknown material hidden within the layers of the one Sorokin gave us. The only other time I've felt like this with a series of novels is with Stephen King's The Dark Tower.

I began the book with some trepidation; it has received a number of very mediocre reviews. After finishing it, I must say that I don't understand how someone could say this book is simply OK, or not too bad or good. It seems, to me, to be a LOVE it or HATE it kind of book. I completely understand someone giving it one-star or five-stars, but I don't understand the middling reception. And as for me, as I've already stated, I absolutely loved it, and I will most definitely be checking out more from Sorokin.

 

[antiloquax]

Thanks for the review D_Davis - the book sounds excellent!

 

[J-Sun]

As I mentioned on another thread, I re-read Tanith Lee's The Book of the Damned (The Secret Books of Paradys I) with the intent to re-read 2 (both after 12 years), and finally read 3 and 4. Since it took me about a month to re-read three novellas (mostly spent on the medieval middle one), I changed my mind and started in on A.E. van Vogt's Monsters.

 

[No One]

Finished Roadside Picnic a couple of days ago. An excellent read and a real mix of thoughtful and emotionally provocative material (for the economy or words used, Monkey was a real heart-breaker of a character). I wasn't sure what to make of that ending at first, but the longer I spend with it the more I like it. As usual I find the best sci-fi turns the external search for answers into an internal question, and there are a lot of those for Red. Very happy with this book.

I'll go for Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants next.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I'll go for Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants next.

Excellent book.

 

[Connavar]

The Ilness by Birgitta Trotzig, reading in its original swedish title Sjudomen. Its a 1972 general fiction novel.

Im reading this for my modern novel class. So far its nightmare read that hard to get a handle on. So much artsy symbolism without enough quality prose and like it should been a poem collection. Hope it gets much better.

 

[Vertigo]

James P Hogan's The Proteus Operation. An interesting take on time travel, though also a rather strangely depressing one (not the book but the concept of timetravel in the book). The vast majority of the book takes place in the opening months of the second world war and at times reads like a history book of that period, which, not being much of a history person, I did find a little trying at times. However outside of that it was an enjoyable well thought out read with good action and interesting handling of time paradoxes. My thanks to Metryq for his recommendation.

Think I will read I am Legend for my next SF Masterworks book. I'm not sure this is quite my style of book but it is pretty short so I shall see how I get on!

 

[antiloquax]

"Feed" by Mira Grant (pseudonym of Seanan McGuire) is set in a near-future (about 2034) in which a virus has caused the dead to rise. The main characters are bloggers. They write up their encounters with Zombies in a world where the mainstream media have been largely discredited. I'm only a few chapters in, but I am enjoying it.

 

[D_Davis]

Home sick today....

Just started and finished Why God Won't Go Away, by Alister McGrath

And now I'm going to read (or start to...) C.G. Jung's Answer to Job.

It's a theological, philosophical kind of day.

 

[Red 13]

I've just started "Heirs of the Blade", book seven of The Shadows Of The Apt series.

 

[Vertigo]

Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. As I expected not quite my cup of tea, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did still enjoy it. Well written and absorbing and, I would guess, a pretty unique take on vampires back in 1954 when it was written. A shame I'm not really into horror or vampire stories or I am sure I would have enjoyed it much more.

 

[thatollie]

Now reading The Ceremonies by T.E.D Klein.

 

[j d worthington]

Now reading The Ceremonies by T.E.D Klein.

I'm really curious as to how you'll get along with that one. To me, it is one of the best in the field of the past 40 years; I would also say Klein carefully chose nearly every word in there to add to the overall effect. Not that it is without flaws, but that it is much more carefully crafted than most horror novels for quite some time....

Well, I've persisted with Deathwish World, whenever I have had any reading time, and I will admit that at this point is is getting much better. Still fairly stereotypical type of story (though the particulars are somewhat different), and the "infodump" has become more organic to the novel (though still rather too much at times); also, the general "message" seems to be more than a bit heavy-handed... but it is turning into more of a genuine adventure story with thriller elements, and I think no few would probably find it of interest. For me... I'm still less than impressed, but not quite as negative as I was early on....

 

[dask]

Finished my night lamp book, ESSAYS ON ENGLISH LITERATURE by Edmond Scherer, the 1891 Scribner's edition. Scherer could write both English and French but as this was a collection of earlier essays on English Lit. intended for a French audience he penned it in French and left the translating for George Saintsbury. I probably shouldn't have read this before turning out the light. It wasn't the easiest read I've ever encountered and took me all summer to finish. After about a page and a half I started to struggle to comprehend what he was tossing me. He's the complete opposite of Michael Dirda. Dirda was a breeze, but Scherer was more difficult, more "high brow" and I don't think it was because it was a translation --- it didn't read like one. Saintsbury deserves much credit for doing a fine job twisting the craziest language on Earth into something readable. He seems especially fond of George Eliot, so much so I may have to check this dame out sometime.