What are you reading the week of Sunday, May 31, 2015?

[scarletwoman]

Last day of May...

Well, it took me all week to get through Blackwater (434 pages), by Kerstin Ekman (Sweden) - I just finished it yesterday. It was a difficult book, written in a very strange, dreamlike style. I couldn't read much of it at a time, because it made me feel sort of unmoored from reality. Not sure how to explain it - it's just that there were all these scenes and locations and characters, and none of them were done head-on. It was all hints and out-of-focus perspective, like everything was taking place in one's peripheral vision. At times while I was reading it, it reminded me very much of some of Ingmar Bergman's more abstract films.

It also didn't help that there were all these Swedish place-names, mostly unpronouncable to a non-Swedish speaker, and I had no known geographical frame of reference, not being at all familiar with that part of Sweden - somewhere among the northern mountains near the border with Norway. Even so, it was actually (almost literally) a spell-binding book. By the time I finally made it to the end, I suddenly understood what had been happening, and I was absolutely stunned by the force of what the author had actually accomplished.

I think I may have to read it again someday - although definitely not right away. It truly was an amazing piece of writing, and I understand why it won several prizes when it was first published.

So, now I've started on another Kerstin Ekman novel, Under the Snow. I figure, why not? Since the first one drove me nearly crazy, I have little sanity left to lose!

What are you reading this week?

[Enthusiast]

1. Hello, everyone! Thank you for the thread, scarletwoman.

Last edited Sun May 31, 2015, 11:10 PM - Edit history (1)

I finished the Ian Rankin book Tooth and Nail. While reading it I had a sense of deja vu (all over again), lol. Yep, you guessed it, I had read it before.

Years ago Mrs. Enthusiast would seldom actually read a book. But she would go to the library and often find a book for me to read on the New Books bookshelf. She was a good book picker too. So I read Tooth and Nail clear back in 1992. One entertaining book!

Now I'm reading Sweetland by Michael Crummey. I've only just gotten a start on it.
I keep thinking Crummley instead of Crummey. The mind plays tricks.

Mrs. Enthusiast is reading The High Divide by Lin Enger. She has positively devoured this book. I knew she would love it as I did. Earlier in the week she read Strip Jack by Ian Rankin. She remarked several times, "Oh, this book!" When she says that I know she likes it.

Thanks for the nice report on Blackwater, scarletwoman.

[scarletwoman]

2. That's cool - when you realize you've already read a book years ago.

It's happened to me, too.

Blackwater was a very unusual book. After finishing it and thinking about it for a day - and I couldn't stop thinking about it! - it really started sinking in what an amazing tour de force of writing skill I had just journeyed through. I'm still feeling sort of gobsmacked.

Thanks for posting!

[pscot]

3. Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh

It's the first of his WWII trilogy. Very readable. I just finished Law and Ardor by Ralph McInerny. a scholar of Roman Catholicism who taught at the University of Notre Dame for more than half a century. His most popular protagonist was Father Dowling. All his novels are located around Notre Dame and North Bend Indiana, where crime seems to have flourished.

[TexasProgresive]

4. "The Time Cellar" by our very own DFW aka Mark Emory

I finally finished 1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion by Morgan Llwelyn. These kind of historical novels cause me to do research as I come across things and people that peak my interest. This book and the ones following are very emotional reads for me as I identify with the Irish who only wanted to be free of British imperialism, bondage and suffering. We in the U.S. may think our forefathers and mothers suffered under British rule but it is nothing compared to what the Irish experienced for 700 years.

The Easter Rising was thought to be a failure the British and was looked with askance by the Irish, many who resented the intrusion into their day to day struggle for survival. All the signers of the Proclamation of The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the People of Ireland were shot by firing squad after a secret courts martial.

That would seem to be the end of it, but as Yogi said, "It's not over till it's over." While the flesh of the leaders was stripped from their bones by quick lime in the unholy prison ground, their blood consecrated the very ground and soul of Ireland. The rest is history.

Every president and especially the Secretary of Defense should study Irish history under British occupation, especially the 1916 Easter Rising and it's aftermath before they try to impose their will on people. It would solve a lot of problems before they occur.

POBLACHT NA h-EIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND 
IRISHMAN AND IRISHWOMEN:

In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organized and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organizations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State. And we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irish woman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities of all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provision Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called. 
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government,


THOMAS J. CLARKE

SEAN MAC DIERMADA   THOMAS MACDONAGH

P.H.PEARSE EAMONN CEANNT

JAMES CONNOLLY   JOSEPH PLUNKETT

[Enthusiast]

5. Thank you, TexasProgresive.

I'm Irish Catholic on my mother's side. Not very Catholic any more. The only book I have read on the subject is Trinity by Leon Uris. Well, I read it twice. I even got Mrs. Enthusiast to read it.

[TexasProgresive]

6. Ms. Llwelyn's books on Ireland

go from the prehistoric legends of Finn Mac Cool and others. These tend to be in the fantasy genre. She continues the saga with Brian Boru who unified Ireland as Ard Ri (high king) but was assassinated after the battle of Clontorf. The 20th century series begins with 1916 and the Easter Rising, I am not sure how the major actors in the Rising were portrayed in Trinity but you really get to know them in this book. Certainly all of the signers of the proclamation as seen through the eyes of Ned Halloran.

I recommend the Irish Century series to anyone who want's to understand Ireland. I think the seeds of the overwhelming vote YES! on gay marriage was planted in 1916. It took the clerical pedophilia scandal to allow that seed to germinate and flower.

This is just my unfounded theory- I got a million of 'em!

[Enthusiast]

8. I'm open to all unfounded theories.

[japple]

7. I finished Lance Weller's book Wilderness last night. The ending was very well done, but everything

Last edited Thu Jun 4, 2015, 07:08 AM - Edit history (1)

about the book was remarkable.

Started reading Kent Haruf's (who died last November) Our Souls at Night.

A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future.

This seems like just the thing to read after the intensity of Wilderness.

[hermetic]

9. Finished Blue Heaven by C.J. Box

The middle of that book was a real page-turner. Couldn't wait to see what happened next. The ending, though, was just sad. And too much. Not impressed. I will forgo any more Mr. Box for a while. Everything I've read so far ends the same.

So, I decided to try a couple from that Stearn's (?) list last week. The Fever. This was in the YA section so I was intrigued. At first I thought I might give it up since I couldn't really relate to anyone in the story, despite the fact I was once a teenage girl myself. Things are sure different now than they were back then. But, there is enough mystery about what's going on to keep me reading, and it's a fast read so I shall see it through.

In retrospect I would like to say that Swordspoint is an awesome book. Quite unique. A bit hard to read sometimes because it uses "olde" language but it's full of humor and pathos. This book is staying in my mind. I might even have to put it in that Best Books post.

Thanks and happy reading!