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On the Beach- Neville Shute.
Hi Bedhead. 'ON THE BEACH' is one of a small handfull of literary titles that I have no problem re-reading over and over and over again. I have always admired this book and every couple of years or so, decide to take it out from it's place on the shelves and start enjoying it all over again!
'There is still time, Brother'
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I seem to have bogged down in DON QUIJOTE, because in the interim I've managed to get through Muriel Sparks' THE FINISHING SCHOOL (amusing, but slight, and not nearly as satisfying as her previous book, AIDING AND ABETTING) as well as Gore Vidal's MYRA BRECKENRIDGE and MYRON (both still hilarious and profoundly subversive after all these years).
Hi Essankay. What can you tell me about 'Myra Breckenridge' & 'Myron'? I've seen (part) of the film of 'Breckenridge', and have to believe that the book is on another level alltogether.
With Vidal, I've only read his 'The City and the Pillar' of which I found his writing style easily accessable (to me anyway) and found the experience quite satisfying!
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Received my copy of James Baldwin's 'Giovanni's Room' today from Amazon UK. I said it before, and will do so yet again that the Cover Art-Work of British Books seem to be much more artistic than the American versions. Do the British have a greater affinity for books than other Nationalities? Curious.
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Posted: |
Jun 7, 2005 - 3:58 AM
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By: |
Essankay
(Member)
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Hi Essankay. What can you tell me about 'Myra Breckenridge' & 'Myron'? I've seen (part) of the film of 'Breckenridge', and have to believe that the book is on another level alltogether.
David, the film is a real mess that doesn't begin to approach the twisted essence of the book. That Hollywood would even attempt to make a film of MYRA is fairly mindboggling. I guess it reflects the freewheeling spirit of the late 60's - early 70's that such a thing was ever undertaken.
The book very cleverly (and presciently, in light of contemporary society) skewers fatuous American celebrity-worship while also relentlessly subverting bourgeois "normality". Gay intellectual pretensions come in for a puncturing as well.
MYRON is perhaps even more astonishing, with its goofy sci-fi time-travel aspect and more pointed political satire.
Myra the character is demented and subversive, but ultimately more appealing than the creepy and conniving conformistas who make up the "normal" world.
With Vidal, I've only read his 'The City and the Pillar' of which I found his writing style easily accessable (to me anyway) and found the experience quite satisfying!
Both MYRA and MYRON are very accessible and compulsively readable. I hadn't read them in thirty years, but reading them again was like doing so for the first time and I couldn't put them down (sorry, DON QUIJOTE).
On the other hand, I've always had a hard time with Vidal's historical novels. In fact, I've never been able to finish a single one.
Maybe it's time to give them a second try as well.
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THE BRADBURY CHRONICLES
A new bio 'bout my fave author.
A better title: MARS IS HEAVEN
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ONCE UPON A TIME IN ITALY: The westerns of Sergio Leone
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For those of us who love to read, feel free to share with us what you've just read and what's next on your list to read!
I just finished Welles 'The War of the Worlds' and his 'The Invisible Man' and Gore Vidal's 'The City and the Pillar'. Up next is Michael Cunningham's 'Specimen Days'.
(I think I've become a more avid reader the older I get!)
What did you think of the Vidal? Did you know it has two different endings?
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I grew up in a house full of books, where everybody read avidly. Consequently, I've got several I'm tackling at any one time. Lately, I've gotten into history; not surprising, since I did major in Classical Civilization.
For the record, I'm reading "The Crusades," by Harold Lamb, and "When Time Began," Book V of the Earth Chronicles, by Zecheriah Stichin. The Stichin is not fiction, but rather an extensive argument that our civilization, going back to its origins in Sumeria, is alien-inspired. Stichin, himself, is a Sumerian scholar, who continually offers up evidence from his own translations from multivarious cuneiform tablets. It's fascinating stuff, but rather dry; hence my intermission with the Holy Land, which may have been inspired by my recent viewing of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, which I found myself liking very much.
I also have any number of art-related books, which I read along with everything else. Lately, I've become interested in the work of Carl Jennewein, sculptor of the pediments of the Philadelphia Museum, among other works.
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