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iwombat - 2007-02-06 09:12:47
Read the Auster, good, straight forward, story, also it's fun to read a book where it's taking place...
the Amis book has been famously trashed by a lot of critics, who really wondered what he was up to this time...
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Baby Party - 2007-02-06 10:30:58
Paula, when you say the new Paul Auster, do you mean Brooklyn Follies, which just came out in paper, or the brand spanking new memoir, Invention of Solitude? wombat, I think you might be referring to the former, which I found a little disappointing (and I'm an Auster fan).
I've read a lot of Amis, too, but I think I just might be done with him. His misogyny finally wore me down.
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iwombat - 2007-02-06 10:49:14
BP, yes, I was refering to the former, I was wondering if I was behind the times. I've read most of Auster's work, some of of it has struck me as too abstract, experimental... intelectual games. Some, entertainingly odd, and magical. Follies was sort of a relief, in it's simple reality.
I've read almost all of Amis's writing as well, I think one of the critcal complaints about this last one was it's abitrary misanthropy.
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Paula - 2007-02-06 11:41:16
The Auster is a new novel. I have historically not had a lot of patience for Paul Auster, but am willing to keep trying.
As for Martin Amis, he is a curious case. He, like Jack Kerouac, has written one transcendently beautiful book and has never written anything else that I can stomach. (Amis = Time's Arrow and Kerouac = The Subterraneans). It's like they both had this one brief moment of compassion and clarity and served that vision, and then fell back down to earth and continued writing stupid crap.
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Greg - 2007-02-06 12:28:13
"continued writing stupid crap." Paula, if you smell something bad, it's because there is an army of patchouli soaked trustafarians trampoosing their way to your door wearing their moldering Clark Wallabees and armed with dog-eared copies of On The Road. You have defamed and derided and denounced The Prophet!
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Bob - 2007-02-06 12:36:15
Paula, I got rained out at the skatepark last night, and so went to the Goodwill to see if they had a home cd player, and picked one up for $10, that even had a cd in it, that eventually wound up making me wonder, is Jordan Corbin (maybe Corbin-Wentworth or Wentworth now) someone you know up there?
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Paula - 2007-02-06 12:45:47
No, but it looks like she teaches voice.
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Philip - 2007-02-06 14:04:28
Given your stated feelings, doesn't this beg the question of what the new Martin Amis is doing up on your nightstand in the first place?
Coincidentally [are there such things as coincidences?], I had just picked up The Moronic Inferno, a collection of 80s-vintage essays -- mostly about America -- by Martin Amis at a thrift store for a dollar and kind of liked it for a subway book.
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Paula - 2007-02-06 14:12:34
Ah, I just keep hoping that he'll write something that I like as much as Time's Arrow, so I continue to try his new stuff out.
I am dogged in my pursuit of bedazzlement.
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Philip - 2007-02-06 14:15:48
BUT ARE THERE SUCH THINGS AS COINCIDENCES????????
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Philip - 2007-02-06 14:37:59
PS: Dogged in Pursuit of Bedazzlement would make a great title for something, in addition to being a worthy life philosophy.
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grigorss - 2007-02-06 15:09:05
If you are "dogged in the pursuit of bedazzlement" you might try this; Ballard's a fine writer, but this is quite unlike his other works; it seems meant to create astonishment, even wonderment in the reader -- how often do you get that from any writer? It's out of print, but used copies can still be found, here and there.
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Paula - 2007-02-06 15:15:37
Philip: I believe that there are coincidences that don't mean anything, or can be attributed to subliminal influences, and then there are co-inky-dinks that do. I would place the Martin Amis synchronicity somewhere between the two.
Grigorss: I have never read Ballard (although I am a fan of Kaye Ballard, from Mothers-in-Law) and this looks like a neat book. And Malcolm Bradbury is no one to sneeze at neither.
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Paula - 2007-02-06 15:16:57
So please do not sneeze at Malcolm. He would not appreciate that.
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Greg - 2007-02-06 18:50:38
It's kind of funny... I haven't had White Castle in years, but connecting it to V.D. makes me crave the Crave Case!
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2fs - 2007-02-06 23:01:26
I admit that I am a slob who sometimes likes White Castle, and I acknowledge that they're probably not all that healthy for you - but I would never have dreamed they have a connection to venereal disease. (Please do not abbreviate Valentine's Day as "V.D." That would be like abbreviating White Castle as "W.C." Hmm...)
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Greg - 2007-02-07 20:49:33
Oh 2fs you can be my BFF for V.D. and we'll get some W.C. and that will make me HAAPIS!!!!
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Dana - 2007-02-10 22:29:43
Hmmm, I've been busy filling up the 80G iPod that I got for Xmas, and just today got around to putting the Dentists on, and was listening to them doing Strawberries are Growing in my Garden, which then inspired me to fire up Lida's version, which remains better than the original.
I think I've settled on Bozo as my favorite album of hers, due to the strange menacing atmosphere of some of the tracks.
Last I checked, she was sort of active again (musically). There was a new-ish mp3 on her website.
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