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What BOOK are you reading right now?

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Hazlitt
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2004 09:18 pm
Shepaints, I too am a Carver fan. I think I've read all or nearly all of the stories in Where I'm Calling From. It's hard to pick favorites, but I liked So Much Water So Close to Home, Put Yourself in My Shoes, and Elephant a lot.

Have you seen Robert Altman's movie Short Cuts? Altman interweaves 9 Carver short stories, cutting back and forth between them. I have to say that there is almost as much Altman in the movie as there is Carver. Still, the movie is well thought of.

On this thread, Tartarin also likes Carver.
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2004 10:32 pm
Tartarin has been out of a2k lately and many of us miss her; she had trouble logging in at some point and hasn't gotten back....
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Hazlitt
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2004 10:49 pm
Oss, sorry to hear about Tartarin dropping out. I always enjoy her posts.
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Wilso
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2004 11:28 pm
Just finished "Veronika decides to die"
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Jan, 2004 11:45 pm
Hazlitt, I am not sure that is for long term, probably we can get tart back in...
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quinn1
 
  1  
Reply Sat 31 Jan, 2004 10:10 am
I finally finished Foucalts Pendulum...glad to have that one done with as my stack beside the bed have been growing and waiting patiently.
Started Wolves of the Calla-S King last night...this will be fabulous but, Im a big fan of the Tower series so, thats really just a 'figured that'
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Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Sat 31 Jan, 2004 12:26 pm
ossobuco wrote:
Tartarin has been out of a2k lately and many of us miss her; she had trouble logging in at some point and hasn't gotten back....


Oh, I wondered. Darn it, I was imagining Tartarin on some fabulous trip, possibly to Machu Picchu or Timbuktu. If you are in contact with her, Ossobuco, please tell her that I miss her voice here.

I'm reading Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds: Notes from a Northwest Year by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, the former education director of Seattle Audubon. I love non-fiction and natural history. This is a great little book.
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shepaints
 
  1  
Reply Sat 31 Jan, 2004 04:55 pm
Thanks Hazlitt, great news, I was unaware that
Altman had made a film! Nice to know there
are Carver fans on a2k!
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plainoldme
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2004 01:31 pm
I love the Altman film of Short Takes. A former friend told me that she had no idea what it is about and I said it was about personal responsibility. She didn't want to hear it. I still think that. Great performances as well.
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Dartagnan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2004 02:05 pm
I miss Tartarin, too, and worried that perhaps something was amiss. Please come back, T!

Re Carver, I heard him read at the UW some years ago. He lived not far from here, of course. It was a great evening; he didn't live that much longer. I must try reading him again, as it's been years.

Re JC Oates: My friends and I had a wee cult of worship back in college, when she was just starting to be published. Loved "Them" and other novels of that period. I've no idea how many of those books are still in print...
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Hazlitt
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2004 02:20 pm
Plainoldme, I think in a round about way Carver is concerned with personal responsibility. I see him as basically writing about people who have to live and made decisions in a rootless, aimless society. As he asks in So Much Water So Close To Home, "Does anything matter, and does anyone care?" I used quotes, but I may not be accurate. His people mostly have to make up their minds without reference of any universal morality. He's dealing directly with the predicament in which we find ourselves.
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Hazlitt
 
  1  
Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2004 02:24 pm
Dart, how lucky to have actually seen and heard Carver read. It is a shame he died so young.
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Dartagnan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 12:12 pm
Yes, I consider myself fortunate!
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shepaints
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 03:41 pm
I attended the University of Windsor where I
believe JCO was a writer in residence for a while.
I found her stories about university life very
close to the bone. She really looks like an artist
writer very slim and huge eyes!
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msolga
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 03:55 pm
plainoldme wrote:
msolga,
I wasn't ignoring you: I don't get updates on all threads I participate in. Hmmm. Wonder why?

I didn't have Joyce Oates as a teacher but friends did. I don't like her writing, which I find morbid and over-detailed. Apparently, as a teacher, she was a bit petty.


Thanks for responding to my questions, plainoldme.
I think I'd have to be in the *right mood* to read another of her novels, although it found this last one interesting. Just felt she went over the same territory ( re motivations of her characters) a few too time too many.
Ended up feeling as though I knew them TOO well! Very Happy
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msolga
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 03:57 pm
shepaints wrote:
I attended the University of Windsor where I
believe JCO was a writer in residence for a while.
I found her stories about university life very
close to the bone. She really looks like an artist
writer very slim and huge eyes!


That's interesting, shepaints. Could you name one of the novels that particularly appealed to you?
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shepaints
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 04:04 pm
You can see a photo of her at
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/oates.html

Msolga....the university stories were short stories,
I believe. Some contained tales of Detroit. There
is nothing comfortable about her work.

I wanted to sob when I read We were the Mulvaneys 1996............
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Dartagnan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 04:15 pm
One of her earlier novels, "Them" I believe, takes place during the Detroit riots...
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msolga
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2004 04:17 pm
Thank you for the link, shepaints. She LOOKS like an artist! Very Happy

We Were The Mullvaneys is the only novel by her that I've read. As much as I found the insights into the family dynamics interesting, I found the father's (very prolonged) inability to cope with what happened to his daughter rather incredible. Was it something like 10 years that he was unable to see her? The mother's acceptance of this situation for so long seemed rather odd, too. But maybe I was imposing my own values & expectations on the situation?
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Name
 
  1  
Reply Tue 3 Feb, 2004 08:11 am
i am not a big literature fan but i do enjoy the ocasionsal play by William Shakespeare--His work Macbeth was my latest choice



Edit (MODERATOR): Signature removed. Please do not employ links or images in Signatures
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