Dale, I just completed Father Sergius; you had recommended this as a decent short starting point for Tolstoy. I found it to be an excellent character study used as a sort of revelation of an understanding of basic human nature, complete with its paradoxical flaws.

The abruptness of the ending was almost a slap, but it underscored the nature of life.

Based on my enjoyment of this Russian author, I thought I'd branch out to Gogol' Dead Souls, also one of your recommendations. However, a library book on hold came in, and I need to read it first.

Good call on Sergius! Thanks!

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Hey, that's great!

And I hope you relish Dead Souls as much as I have. Now that's the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation you'll be reading?

There are only a few books that have had me perhaps almost weeping with mirth & this is one of them. Others have been Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and Kingsley Amis's Jake's Thing (the bit about the tourists at least -- many years ago). And, yes, the bit in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" in which Lovecraft wrote out the old alcoholic's screams. But Gogol is my favorite of them all.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Hey, that's great!
>
> And I hope you relish Dead Souls as much as I
> have. Now that's the Pevear-Volokhonsky
> translation you'll be reading?

I'll have to lookm. I pulled it off of Project Gutenberg.

>
> There are only a few books that have had me
> perhaps almost weeping with mirth & this is one of
> them. Others have been Evelyn Waugh's Decline and
> Fall

Read this in An Introduction to Satire class, at Sonoma State, spring '68.

> and Kingsley Amis's Jake's Thing (the bit
> about the tourists at least -- many years ago).
> And, yes, the bit in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"
> in which Lovecraft wrote out the old alcoholic's
> screams. But Gogol is my favorite of them all.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Noo, noooooo -- that will be a public domain translation -- possibly even from a French translation from the Russian. Let me loan you my copy of Pevear & Volokhonsky or my copy of the Guerney/Fusso version (I have it, haven't read it).

D. J. Hogarth

Let me see if the library has the Pevear-Volokhonsky version, or the other one you mention. If not, I'd like to take you up on your offer.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Sawfish Wrote:
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> D. J. Hogarth

That's over a century old. Now that doesn't automatically mean it's not a good translation. But if I'm not mistaken, the early Dead Souls translation(s) reflected an idea that the book's significance was as a non-romanticized picture of rural Russian life -- i.e. largely documentary. Which is (I exaggerate) like going to Lovecraft for documentary value regarding Massachusetts in the 1920s-30s.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> I began reading books for adults when I was 11, so that's given me
> a lot of time to read.
>
> I'm easily distracted by the computer
>

Unless I can cope better with that distraction, I fear I will face some deep regrets when I am older.

In an odd sense, being old is liberating.

You are much more comfortable in the present because there is much less future to obsess over.

For example, at about age 70 I reasoned that if I wanted to--and I sure can afford it now--I could be a $200 per day heroin user, and what future, exactly, is at stake?

Yes. Very liberating. A small compensation.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Knygatin Wrote:

> Unless I can cope better with that distraction, I
> fear I will face some deep regrets when I am
> older.


Think of your attention as being money.

There are things you have no choice but to buy or pay for, things you ought to buy, and things you like to buy. Why waste money on anything else?

Similarly with one’s attention — except that attention is worth far more than money.

(Just a thought, Knygatin!)

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
>
> > Unless I can cope better with that distraction,
> I
> > fear I will face some deep regrets when I am
> > older.
>
>
> Think of your attention as being money.
>
> There are things you have no choice but to buy or
> pay for, things you ought to buy, and things you
> like to buy. Why waste money on anything else?

This is the same as an information triage, which is essential for living in the current age.

Try it out. Look at the headlines on Google News. Ask yourself: do I need to know anything, at all, about the purported content of the story? Would it matter to my life one little substantive bit if I had never heard of it?

It may be that soon, like me, you'll conclude that you don't even need to look at Google News, at all.

>
> Similarly with one’s attention — except that
> attention is worth far more than money.
>
> (Just a thought, Knygatin!)

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Sawfish, yes, I agree.

[www.theguardian.com]

From my experience, I regard the Guardian as almost self-parody, a Leftist paper from Britain -- but this article was brought to my attention years ago &it made an impression.

It would be ironic if anyone took this posting to mean that I have a regular habit of giving the Guardian my attention.

Yes, attention is worth far more than money. We should be very careful with what we fill our brains with. The Internet is a drug (at least as addictive as heroin). I am thankful for all the books, and other stuff, I have found through the Internet, but a lot of time is also wasted in sifting through all dross, and in repetition!

And there is a social replacement the Internet caters to. Reading books, meeting the characters in the books, is basically a compensation for the need of having social meetings. But today the Internet fill that social compensation, so we read less books while spending more time instead in discussing books. It may be that the social need trumps over the intellectual/artistic needs.

Knygatin Wrote:
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> Reading books, meeting the characters
> in the books, is basically a compensation for the
> need of having social meetings.

I like that sentiment, Knygatin, although I'd personally say "partial fulfilment of" instead of "compensation for".

Harold Bloom, a man whose thinking I've had a love/hate relationship with for decades, once said in an interview:

"One goes back to books because one cannot possibly know enough people."

(According to Bloom, this was an ancient Greek adage, but I have not been able to confirm this, and it seems unlikely given literacy rates in the ancient world and the high cost of producing hand-written scrolls.)

I think dear old Harold's adage connects with what you just said, but for me the "meeting" would -- in most cases -- be with the author, much more than with his/her characters. Exceptions to this would be those very, very few authors who truly disappear. Shakespeare would the most obvious example, but even his astonishingly wide-ranging writings leave a faint impression of the man behind them: middle-class, a royalist, perhaps not quite as in tune with women as people are inclined to think.

I read CAS to relish his imagination, his vocabulary and his fatalism. I think I would go out of my way to avoid Avoosl Wuthoqquan if I ever saw him walking down the street.

As usual, these are very cogent and insightful comments, Dale.

Reply interleaved, below:

Avoosl Wuthoqquan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Reading books, meeting the characters
> > in the books, is basically a compensation for
> the
> > need of having social meetings.
>
> I like that sentiment, Knygatin, although I'd
> personally say "partial fulfilment of" instead of
> "compensation for".
>
> Harold Bloom, a man whose thinking I've had a
> love/hate relationship with for decades, once said
> in an interview:
>
> "One goes back to books because one cannot
> possibly know enough people."
>
> (According to Bloom, this was an ancient Greek
> adage, but I have not been able to confirm this,
> and it seems unlikely given literacy rates in the
> ancient world and the high cost of producing
> hand-written scrolls.)

Knowing nothing of the man, it sure sounds like he's trying to cultivate an image, doesn't it? The broadly read sophisticate...

But I really ought to give him a chance, I suppose.

Nahhh...

>
> I think dear old Harold's adage connects with what
> you just said, but for me the "meeting" would --
> in most cases -- be with the author, much more
> than with his/her characters.

This is very interesting, Dale!

It underscores a perception that I've had when posting here that there are two basic types of consumers of literature: those who read works like someone consuming a wine of varying quality--concentrating simply on the attributes of the wine, itself.

That's like me.

And there are those who do this, also, but are deeply interested in viticulture and also the varying approaches/philosophies of wine-making, and, significantly, each wine-maker.

They are not only consumers, but students of wine.

Extending this analogy, there are those who also make their own vintages, themselves, or have experimented with it. I, for one, flirted with creative writing in college, and just after. Long enough to realize that I don't have either the skill, or more importantly, the necessary openness to create emotionally compelling fiction.

Truly, I came to the conclusion that to write with conviction the sort of stuff I was interested in--Jim Harrison-like stuff--the author must be personally "open"--must expose him/herself to the degree that I would never be able to.


> Exceptions to this
> would be those very, very few authors who truly
> disappear. Shakespeare would the most obvious
> example, but even his astonishingly wide-ranging
> writings leave a faint impression of the man
> behind them: middle-class, a royalist, perhaps not
> quite as in tune with women as people are inclined
> to think.

Excellent!

I've often viewed him as a sort of Paul McCartney--and I'm not saying this as a comparison of artistic worth--but noting that McCartney is undeniably middle-class and conservative, and appears to have always been so.

And they were both *popular*, in the senses that heir works captured the popular imagination.

>
> I read CAS to relish his imagination, his
> vocabulary and his fatalism.

Yes, and if I might add an observation: you are one of the few regulars who seems to recognize CAS's limitations. He was, indeed, a narrowly limited prose writer. When he was in stride, he did something very special in a very specialized field. Otherwise...

Now, from his artistic voice, and from simply the comments on his life I've read here, he was probably a very likeable guy--I'd probably like him, anyway. But that's apart from his artistic talents.

> I think I would go
> out of my way to avoid Avoosl Wuthoqquan if I ever
> saw him walking down the street.

Unfortunately, Avoosl Wuthoqquan represents one facet of who I am...I'm at least sharp enough not to get too rapacious, though...

Good stuff, Dale! It's why I'm here!

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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I regard it as an honour to be mistaken for Dale Nelson. :)