April 2015

Deep into my annual Harry Potter reread. Finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets yesterday and began Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Huzzah!

Go, Becky, go!

Alternating three reads at the moment: The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier; Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death by Robert Shiarella, some hysterical & gallows satire circa 1974, about a reality TV show, "Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death," that makes quality entertainment out of capital punishment; and the grim but oh so compelling, Asylum Piece and Other Stories by Anna Kavan.

I have read something by Carpentier--hold on, let me check my library--there it is: Reasons of State. I read it during a period when I was reading every title I could grab that came out of the Latin American Boom...and, like most of them, I can't remember a damn thing about it. Go me.

I like a book about a reality show that makes entertainment out of capital punishment. And what a great title! I probably will need to source that one.

Short stories...well, you know me and short stories. I like them, but I rarely read them. Except in magazines. Bad Becky!

There's some definite Pynchon vibe going on in Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death that I think you would appreciate. And that's beyond just the names Shiarella gave his characters too: Fila Noogie & her crude husband, Lewd Noogie, Miss Clitty, Ulloch Tugg, Neal Kroutch, a warden named Keyster, et cetera, to name a few -- but the bizarre over the top black comedy of it all can't help remind one of Tom's funniest moments as well. And it's a very, shall we say, sexy, satire to boot, in touch w/the times of those shacking-up seventies. Or "juicy" as you might say ;-) . I bought the cheapest copy available for $15 at the time. Everything else was $20 and up. I'd be happy to pass it along to you (as long as you promise to pass it back) if you don't want to fork out the dough. Might make a good reason alone to drive for hours over to the South Bay & pay an overdue visit to the Frog.

What if the short stories are "interconnected", Becky, so that they read more like a disjointed novel than individual pieces -- something like Jesus' Son: Stories, say -- do they do much for you then?

Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death sounds curiouser and curiouser. Pynchonean--yes!

I'm actually cool with interconnected stories (although the longer each story is the better, like in David Mitchell's Bone Clocks, in which the sections/stories are probably more like novella length.)

Finished up the Harry Potter series--it gets better every time.

Just finished The Princess Bride by William Goldman, a book that I've wanted to read forever, which was suggested for our book group at the store by one of the members. It's really good!

Now I've picked up Robertson Davies' Cornish Trilogy, which I think I read thirty years ago--it's on my shelf and looks like it was read--but which I a) can't remember and b) know calls for a reread as a, shall we say, mature person. So, The Rebel Angels it is.

Robertson Davies seems like a change of pace for you, Becky. How you liking it so far?

Me? I've been reading some exceptional essays this weekend by John Gregory Dunne collected in Crooning. During the week I've been reading William Sansom's first novel The Body (1949). Burgess included it, you may recall, in his 99 Novels, and now seemed a good time to read it again. Strange how much we routinely forget.

Picked up a vintage mass market pb of Chandler Brossard's second novel The Bold Saboteurs (1953) this weekend, that's worth mentioning.

I love vintage mass markets! Does it have an appropriately lurid cover? I wish I still had the copy of Women in Love I lugged around when I was in college. It was vintage '58 or so, and the cover looked like it could have been an illustration from the Ken Russell sextravaganza.

I like Robertson Davies, although I'm moving through it pretty slowly. Just read the new Toni Morrison, which was short and gorgeous.

Unfortunately the cover I have is pretty tame. But there are plenty other Chandler Brossard titles like this one appropriately lurid.

I love it! I'd say it's pretty lurid. I mean, she's wearing nothing but a bedspread!