Autumn Books

[AdamSmith]

RE: Susannah and The Elders

 

>I guess I am having an Edmund White weekend since I am now

>reading his book of short stories about aging men called

>Chaos. His third story, Give It Up For Billy, is about an

>older man's infatuation with a go-go boy in Key West. Reading

>the story I felt that White is either a poster here, or he

>should be! Give yourself up, Edmund!

 

I get the same feeling!

 

Few weeks ago I found myself standing in a Borders, having torn two-thirds of the way through Chaos right there in the aisle. Somehow his later works have this feeling of not being composed at all, just effortlessly flowing out of him. I find I both like and dislike this aspect of his writing. Sometimes it works; other times I wish he would work his material more.

 

Did anyone ever read his early, highly wrought (maybe overwrought) novel Nocturnes for the King of Naples?

[AdamSmith]

>Isn't this the book where she has her priceless Chippendale

>dining room furniture painted white and takes it as a

>compliment when everyone is speechless?

 

No, that would be Henry James's The Spoils of Poynton! :+

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spoils_of_Poynton

[+ Lucky]

RE: Susannah and The Elders

 

You read your books at Borders? I've noticed that my local Borders has taken out all of the comfy chairs...What I hate is the people who sprawl all over the floor and don't even bother to get out of your way!

 

BTW- Who knows why White used the reference to Susannah and the Elders?

[+ Charlie]

I prefer to read histories, and presently I am reading two that are very different from one another: "A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation", by Catherine Allgor, a fascinating political biography of the woman who created the office of First Lady; and "Empire Express", by David Haward Bain, a very well written history of the building of the first transcontinental railway.

[AdamSmith]

RE: Susannah and The Elders

 

>You read your books at Borders? I've noticed that my local

>Borders has taken out all of the comfy chairs...What I hate is

>the people who sprawl all over the floor and don't even bother

>to get out of your way!

>

>BTW- Who knows why White used the reference to Susannah and

>the Elders?

 

Actually I read the stupid thing standing slackjawed in the aisle. I suppose when I get hemorrhoids I can blame them on standing around in bookstores, instead of other activities.

 

His use of long-suffering Susannah was too arcane, or at least baroque, for me to get. As I said, I think more and more he puts down the first thing that comes into his head. No disrespect, but as Flannery O'Connor said, it is possible for a writer eventually to have used up his material.

 

His little book on Proust, though, was a gem.

[Rod Hagen]

RE: Susannah and The Elders

 

>Did anyone ever read his early, highly wrought (maybe

>overwrought) novel Nocturnes for the King of Naples?

 

I love Nocturnes. What must that have been like for him, to have his first book praised by Nabokov and his second, Nocturnes, by Vidal? Awesome and intimidating I suppose.

 

He'll be at the library Monday night.

[Rod Hagen]

RE: Susannah and The Elders

 

>I love Nocturnes. What must that have been like for him, to

>have his first book praised by Nabokov and his second,

>Nocturnes, by Vidal? Awesome and intimidating I suppose.

>

>He'll be at the library Monday night.

 

 

Love is too strong of a word. ENJOYED, certainly.

 

Also, The Flaneur was enjoyable. So far Hotel De Dream is not living up to its reviews, but it doesn't suck either.

[AdamSmith]

RE: Susannah and The Elders

 

>Love is too strong of a word. ENJOYED, certainly.

 

Agree. I thought I loved it at first, but halfway through it became too much of a muchness. The Beautiful Room is Empty might be the book of his that I enjoyed the most.

 

His vintage travelogue, States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1983), is worth hunting down to see how things in society have evolved, and how they haven't.

[ValleyDwellerNorth]

"Mozart's Sister" by Rita Charbonnier is proving to be an entertaining read so far. I started the book last last week. So far it is very enjoyable.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/5996/519qmchbntlss500rr2.jpg

Here is a description:

 

 

Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, affectionately called Nannerl by her family, could play the piano with an otherworldly skill from the time she was a child, when her tiny hands seemed too small to encompass a fifth. At the tender age of five, she gave her first public performance, amazing the assembled gentlemen and ladies with the beautiful music she created. But her moment of glory was cut short, for even as her father carried her around to receive their praise, her mother began laboring to bring a second child into the world. After hours of her mother's pained cries and agonized shouts, which rang in Nannerl's ears like a terrifying symphony, the child was born. They named him Wolfgang. Nannerl loved him instantly. As they grew, Wolfgang and his sister became inseparable, creating a fantasy world together and playing music the likes of which no one had ever heard. They were two sides of a single person, opposite in temperament--he lighthearted and charismatic, she shy and retiring--but equal in talent. Yet it was Wolfgang who carried their father's dreams of glory. And as the siblings matured, Nannerl's prodigious talent was brushed aside by her father. Instead of playing alongside her brother in the world's great cities, she was forced to stop performing and become a provincial piano teacher to support Wolfgang's career. Nannerl might have accepted this life in her brother's shadow but for the appearance of a potential suitor who reawakened her passion for life, for love, for music--and who threatened to upset the delicate balance that kept the Mozart family in harmony. Mozart's Sister draws you into the lush palaces and salons of eighteenth-century Europe and into the fascinating life of a woman who ultimately found a way to express her own genius.