Not sure if there’s a place for what yo eyes be scanning so here it is.
Yesterday I found this small bookstore called Shakespeare & Sons, a kind of large walk-in closet, and bought Viktor Pelevin’s Omon Ra. I’ve wanted to read this for a while, I think it’s getting the rep of being a modern classic.
Edit: dat store BTW (like a lot of things I’ve experienced so far in Prague) jacks da prices up way beyond what’s marked.
Interesting. Let me know if it’s any good, I don’t read anything contemporary apart from Houellebecq (and A song of Ice and Fire, which I’ve given up on now since he’s the slowest writer ever). Randomly, one of my friends from school is trying to get me to read one of Tony Robbins’ self-development books (in French). She seems to think it will help me, but I’m sceptical if not outright dismissive. She said she’d lend it to me when she’s finished it.
I’ve finished Oman Ra. It builds and builds and by the end I was gripped. Great contemporary novel which takes the Soviet space system and turns it into a sick dystopia.
Without knowing it until the end, my ex-wife had bought me one of his novels (Life of Insects) about 18 years ago. Funny how that works.
I want to keep reading so I’ve just bought Olga Tokarczuk’s 2018 Booker Prize winning novel Flights which at first glance looks more a collection of essays of varying size. It looks very different from a novel so I figure it’s worth the chance. Booker’s usually good too.
This makes me tempted, but I know how novels will end up with me. I’m reading two books at the moment, both biographies - Chopin by Walker, and da Vinci by Isaacson. Both very good, though Isaacson’s bio is at a low at the moment, with description after description of da Vinci’s paintings. It’s not uninteresting, but it’s too much at the same time, and I wish he’d balance it with more about Leonardo as scientist.
Can you read two books at once? I tried it years ago but couldn’t concentrate and felt there’s enough going on outside the novel to already pull me away from it, so it’s one book at a time for me.
BTW this Flights novel apparently has a section on Chopin’s heart coming back to Warsaw. l’ve just read a few comments about the book and it doesn’t even sound like a novel. It’s got like 120 different chapters w/ different themes or subjects.
wut i thought diz wuz gonna be about harry pottah 
reminds me of this
ahahahah DAYUM!!
zo i gatha he vil not lyk diz den 
A friend here asked the same thing just a few days ago - it works fine, but I think the reason it works fine might be that they are biographies. They have a plot I suppose, in a way, but it’s not one where you have to remember characters, events and relations in the same way as with a novel.
I can’t get used to the voice they’ve given him - he looks like he should have a cute, high pitched cartoony voice, but he sounds like he hosts a radio show on analytical politics on his spare time.
ahahahaha
dat wud be zum legendary charactah development
Did you see it btw? I saw it premiered a few days ago.
da zepp vil go diz tuezday, n pozz pozt a review in da movie thread
Sweet 
So I’m 100 into this 400 page novel and I have to say it’s brilliant. Most if not all of the many stories she’s laid out so far––and they vary in length from about 10-15 pages to just a paragraph long––have one of the ideas of flight as their theme. Beyond that I cannot say that the stories so far link up. However that doesn’t at all disrupt the flow of the novel. A couple of the longer stories–like a husband dealing with his wife and child disappearing while on holiday on a Croatian island, or an expat sailor losing his mind while working on a ferry–are just really gripping.She changes her narrative style, use of tenses, manner of writing for the stories. Some are her own, diary-like stories; some are historical accounts; others just creative fancies. There’s nothing flamboyant or superfluous in style or vocabulary as you get with Salman Rushdie, for example. It’s just outstanding creative writing.
I haven’t finished the Tokarczuk book yet and later do plan to read her earleir work, Primeval & Other Times, but today picked up another Booker International winner (2016), South Korean Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. Supposed to be an intense chilling work though I’m not really sure what it’s about. Will read it next & get back to this.
I’ve bought Bukowski’s Factotum for an adult (mid-fifties) English student of mine – very successful guy, strait-laced, big business, beautiful family. It took me a while to think of which books would suit him, and the straight direct pretty simple Bukowski style is right on. Most other good writers are a bit above him, and I need to secure his basics while still challenging him a bit here & there. Problem is this book is loaded with grime and sex, often very funny, but graphic. I think I’ll give this to him, but it’s a bit of a risk too. If you haven’t read it, there’s this towards the beginning:
Martha got up and turned on the radio. Loud. “I’m a good
dancer,” she said. “Watch me dance!”
She whirled in her green tent, kicking her legs. She wasn’t
so hot. Soon she had the smock up around
her waist and was waving her behind in my face. The pink
panties had a large hole over the right cheek. Then off
came the smock and she was just in her panties. Next the
panties were on the floor by the smock and she was doing
a grind. Her triangle of cunt hair was almost hidden by her
dangling, bouncing stomach.
Sweat was making her mascara run. Suddenly her eyes
narrowed. I was sitting on the edge of the bed. She leapt on
me before I could move. Her open mouth was pressed on
mine. It tasted of spit and onions and stale wine and (I
imagined) the sperm of four hundred men. She pushed her
tongue into my mouth. It was thick with saliva, I gagged and
pushed her off. She fell on her knees, tore open my zipper,
and in a second my soft packer was in her mouth. She
sucked and bobbed. Martha had a small yellow ribbon in
her short grey hair. There were warts and big brown moles
on her neck and cheeks.
My penis rose; she groaned, bit me. I screamed, grabbed
her by the hair, pulled her off. I stood in the center of the
room wounded and terrified. They were playing a Mahler
Symphony on the radio. Before I could move she was down
on her knees and on me again. She gripped my balls
mercilessly with both of her hands. Her mouth opened, she
had me; her head bobbed, sucked, jerked. Giving my balls
a tremendous yank while almost biting my pecker in half
she forced me to the floor. Sucking sounds filled the room
as my radio played Mahler. I felt as if I were being eaten by
a pitiless animal. My pecker rose, covered with spittle and
blood. The sight of it threw her into a frenzy. I felt as if I was
being eaten alive.
If I come, I thought desperately, I’ll never forgive myself.
As I reached down to try to yank her off by the hair, she
clutched my balls again and squeezed them without pity.
Her teeth scissored midpoint on my penis as if to slice me
in two. I screamed, let go of her hair, fell back. Her head
bobbed remorselessly. I was certain the sucking could be
heard all over the roominghouse.
“NO!” I yelled.
She persisted with inhuman fury. I began to come. It was
like sucking the insides out of a trapped snake. Her fury
was mixed with madness; she sucked at that sperm,
gurgling it into her throat.
She continued to bob and suck.
“Martha! Stop! It’s over!”
She wouldn’t. It was as if she had been turned into an
enormous all-devouring mouth. She continued to suck and
bob. She went on, on. “NO!” I yelled again… This time she
got it like a vanilla malt through a straw.
I collapsed. She rose and began dressing herself. She
sang:
“When a NewYork baby says goodnight - it’s early in the
morning
goodnight, sweetheart - it’s early in the morning -
goodnight, sweetheart - milkman’s on his way home…”
I staggered to my feet, clutching the front of my pants and
found my wallet. I took out $5, handed it to her. She took the
$5, tucked it into the front of her dress between her breasts,
grabbed my balls playfully once again, squeezed, let go,
and waltzed out of the room.
I finished this this morning. I think people who want a cohesive story all the way through, or something where the parts add up to something more in the end, probably won’t be too keen about this book. It’s a large assortment of stories based on the theme of movement. Brilliantly written, not funny for the most part but the stories are engaging, and I definitely think it deserves its accolades.
Next up is Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (2016 Booker Intl winner)
The Vegetarian is on my list. Can’t wait for some free time to get into it.
When I’m in the middle of a class, I’m too anxious to read a new book, so currently I’m re-reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is one of my very favourites. Might re-read some Ishiguro during my second summer class.
