Chilling out at my folks place before heading off to London (week to go, w00t) has left me bored out of my mind, so aside from learning some of those extra-difficult tunes that I've been meaning to get into my fingers, I've been scouring bookshops for great big door-stopper books to keep me amused.
John Irving's latest, 'Until I find You' was the latest, weighing in at 820-odd pages. Not his greatest book, but apparently his most autobiographical. Anyway, in and amongst the the tattoos, prostitutes, wrestlers, actors, screenwriters, swiss psychiatrists, organists, choirgirls, transvestites, and fearsome stepsisters, a character appears who plays wooden flute in a trad session at the Central (station) pub in Edinburgh. I see in the sessions section that the Central closed down last year - is it still closed? That part of the story was set a few years ago, though.
Irving usually bases his characters on real people - at least he's always researched his subject matter pretty thoroughly - for this book he even learned how to tattoo - so I wonder if he fell in with the Central crowd. Hell, maybe he even based the character Heather on someone like Claire Mann
Anyway, don't all rush out to get the book just cos of the trad connection - it's quite a small reference compared with the rest of the book, which won't be to everybody's taste. There's so much weird sex! (okay, now you can all rush out at once %7)
Now I need another giant tome to read. Any suggestions?
The Fire and Ice fantasy series by George R.R. Martin.
"Giant tome" would be an understatement. If you're anything like me, you'll devour the first three 1000-something page monsters in a couple of weeks, just in time for the release of the fourth and final installment.
thanks for the suggestions. I took a trip to the bookshop, but they didn't have any of those. NO John Irving at all! And they only sell George RR Martin from under the counter, in a brown paper bag. I was too embarrassed to ask for it! (There was a *girl* behind the counter. You can't buy fantasy from a girl! It'd get back to my parents somehow, and they'd have to disown me again)
Time to pull down 'Ulysses' off the shelf and give it a go again...
Then plop it at the door and no one will be able to get in or out of any room whatsoever...yes they will yes...no they won't no...
How bout Pete Hamill's (New York) - 'Forever' - Twas a good read...Irving's best - Garp...
Not to mention that she would look at you with pity and loathing; thinking that anyone who would buy a book with fantasy-type prancing horse on the cover....oh, never mind. (Why don't they just publish them with PLAIN covers?) Just go get a copy from the library, like I did.
If it's a female flute player then I think I know who it was based on. A friend was interviewed a few years back by him as part of the research into this novel.
I might check it out in the shop (certainly not buying it as any books of his I read were dire) - what's the page number???!!
Don Dellilo's Underworld was an entertaining read. But you better have time on your hands. If it's weirdness you want, his Ratner's Star borders on the silly at times.
Solzhynetsin's (or close to that) Gulag series is well worth the effort too - mainly because after reading it you realise the ignorance of most people concerning the damage Stalin and the communist system did.
occurs late in the novel... the character's name is Heather Burns, and she, and the fact that she plays wooden flute, appear for the first time on page 713. So quite near the end. And the trad references are few and far between, sadly.
(I didn't read that review, I'm just too lazy to explain the book for you.)
If that's still not serious enough, 'Blindness' by Jose Saramago should impress the pants off the book store girl, if she has half a clue. Although if she doesn't, you can't go wrong with Margaret Atwood.
(Incidentally, any book with a big gold sticker reading "Oprah's book club" on the front is automatically disqualified from my recommended reading list, no matter how much I enjoyed it when it first came out.)
Not to mention that you can't unload 'em on the used-book buyers. The people at Powell's just sneer at you if you dare soil their counter with Oprah retreads,
It's upsetting. She's got some brilliant books on that reading list that I couldn't bear to show my face any more if I recommended. Once I read 'Fall On Your Knees' by Anne Marie Macdonald, which is an extremely well-written book, and I told a friend to pick it up, but in between the time I read it and the time my friend found it in the store, Oprah had stolen it forever. Not only did my friend refuse to buy it, but I got an earful about suggesting it in the first place. Boo Hoo. Evil Oprah and her Evil Book Club.
Actually it's great what she's doing, I just wish publishers would stop splashing it all over the covers of perfectly respectable books.
Libraries usually have pre-Oprahfied books and they'll let you read 'em for free. Of course after they've been Oprahfied you might have to put it on reserve to get ahold of it and run the risk of the girl behind the counter thinking you're reserving it because of the Oprahfication.
Ya just can't win for trying.
Anyway, as per recommendations, give a shot at Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume. I hesitate at recommending anything by Robbins, as I have this love hate relationship with him. He's a masterful writer, but he knows it and likes to show it off. It's like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes to show how clever and funny it was.
But he is clever and funny, so I can't help reading him.
But Jitterbug Perfume is the one book of his that I've read more than once, because it's worth it.
Anything by Eco. He's Robbins' Good Twin. Just as masterful, just as funny, but in a far more subtle way, ten times more erudite, but the erudition is just what Eco is. It comes through in his writting because he is intelligent and educated, but he writes in what, for him, is his "natural" voice. There's no sense that he's being "clever" in the text itself.
The Name of the Rose is his most "accessable" book, if you don't get hung up on the Latin, but if you've read The DiVinci Code you'll want to start with Focoult's Pendulum to see how the story is told right.
After I read Jitterbug Perfume, I was raving one evening to a friend about what a fantastic novel it was. She was not impressed. Once you've read one Tom Robbins, she said, you've read them all. Six Robbins novels later, I must concede she was not wrong.
One of my favorite giant tomes is the Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. Its been around for a while so you've probably already read it. But if not, it will occupy you for some time. Good story that action in 17th century London and in the colonies.
Railroad's writing that kind of fantasy these days?!? Man, I've been out of fandom for a looonnngggg time, haven't I. Last thing of his I read was... was... part of Armageddon Rag, I think.
Tom Robbins reminds me a bit of James Joyce, in that he's so busy being gleeful about how good he is that he rather gets in his own light. I read Cowgirls and got to the end of it and wondered why I had gotten involved enough in it to either like it or be irritated by it, both of which I was. Never got to anything else of his.
Giant tomes... how about Gerard's Herbal, which a friend of mine has nicknamed "the hernia herbal"? Not much plot but plenty of reading; it's a large (as in 9"x12") hardback, about 4" thick. Should convince the girl at the bookshop that you're impossibly erudite, too. *evil grin*
The Da-vinci code. Awsome book, especially as I used to belong to a now poisoned by money organisation called St John's Ambulance Brigade, which is a branch from the Order of St John, which was started by the Knights of St John. always knew they were hiding something....
Giant tomes? I recommend:
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes (nonfiction--about the founding of Australia)
Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage and Stones of Aran: Labyrinth by Tim Robinson (both nonfiction--about Inishmore, gets pretty scientific at times, but two really beautiful books essentially about how landscape shapes culture and vice versa)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (another nonfiction, sciencey/naturey book, really beautifully written and thought-provoking, won the Pulitzer in the 70s)
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (true fiction--about Gary Gilmore, parts of it are pretty sad, don't know if that's something you're after right now)
Mosquito by Gayl Jones (fiction--very post-modern, digressionary, stream-of-consciousness-y with a vengeance, what the author describes as a "jazz novel")
Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell (nonfiction--not a massive tome, but an excellent book about the disappearing Louisiana coast/bayou country and Cajun culture. I read this a couple months ago and learned a lot about Louisiana and the Cajun, American Indian, and Vietnamese communities along the coast. The author offers some gorgeous descriptions of the coast down there, and he pretty much predicts all the devastation that's happened in the last few days (the book was published in 2003).
Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Chilling out at my folks place before heading off to London (week to go, w00t) has left me bored out of my mind, so aside from learning some of those extra-difficult tunes that I've been meaning to get into my fingers, I've been scouring bookshops for great big door-stopper books to keep me amused.
John Irving's latest, 'Until I find You' was the latest, weighing in at 820-odd pages. Not his greatest book, but apparently his most autobiographical. Anyway, in and amongst the the tattoos, prostitutes, wrestlers, actors, screenwriters, swiss psychiatrists, organists, choirgirls, transvestites, and fearsome stepsisters, a character appears who plays wooden flute in a trad session at the Central (station) pub in Edinburgh. I see in the sessions section that the Central closed down last year - is it still closed? That part of the story was set a few years ago, though.
Irving usually bases his characters on real people - at least he's always researched his subject matter pretty thoroughly - for this book he even learned how to tattoo - so I wonder if he fell in with the Central crowd. Hell, maybe he even based the character Heather on someone like Claire Mann
Anyway, don't all rush out to get the book just cos of the trad connection - it's quite a small reference compared with the rest of the book, which won't be to everybody's taste. There's so much weird sex! (okay, now you can all rush out at once %7)
Now I need another giant tome to read. Any suggestions?
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Q
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
The Fourth Hand, by..... John Irving! Weird isn't the word.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
"Merry Men" by Carolyn Chute
"Paradise Falls" vols. 1 and 2, by Don Robertson
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by ∅
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
The Fire and Ice fantasy series by George R.R. Martin.
"Giant tome" would be an understatement. If you're anything like me, you'll devour the first three 1000-something page monsters in a couple of weeks, just in time for the release of the fourth and final installment.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Here's a sample chapter:
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/chapter.html
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
I always wondered what happened to George Martin after Phil Specter stole the Beatles from him!
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Q
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Is that pronounced as George "Arse" Martin?
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Bren
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
thanks for the suggestions. I took a trip to the bookshop, but they didn't have any of those. NO John Irving at all! And they only sell George RR Martin from under the counter, in a brown paper bag. I was too embarrassed to ask for it! (There was a *girl* behind the counter. You can't buy fantasy from a girl! It'd get back to my parents somehow, and they'd have to disown me again)
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Q
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
LOL. If that's the case, Matt, how in the world did you get hold of all those Harry Potter books?
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Harry Potter isn't fantasy. He's real, OK?
Mind you, took me ages to find that bloody hidden platform at Kings Cross.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Time to pull down 'Ulysses' off the shelf and give it a go again...
Then plop it at the door and no one will be able to get in or out of any room whatsoever...yes they will yes...no they won't no...
How bout Pete Hamill's (New York) - 'Forever' - Twas a good read...Irving's best - Garp...
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by paulgil
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Not to mention that she would look at you with pity and loathing; thinking that anyone who would buy a book with fantasy-type prancing horse on the cover....oh, never mind. (Why don't they just publish them with PLAIN covers?) Just go get a copy from the library, like I did.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Michele Sims
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
If it's a female flute player then I think I know who it was based on. A friend was interviewed a few years back by him as part of the research into this novel.
I might check it out in the shop (certainly not buying it as any books of his I read were dire) - what's the page number???!!
Don Dellilo's Underworld was an entertaining read. But you better have time on your hands. If it's weirdness you want, his Ratner's Star borders on the silly at times.
Solzhynetsin's (or close to that) Gulag series is well worth the effort too - mainly because after reading it you realise the ignorance of most people concerning the damage Stalin and the communist system did.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by continuo
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
occurs late in the novel... the character's name is Heather Burns, and she, and the fact that she plays wooden flute, appear for the first time on page 713. So quite near the end. And the trad references are few and far between, sadly.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Q
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
OK, OK Matt, if you want the girl at the bookstore to take you for a Serious Reader, pick up Umberto Eco's 'Baudelino'
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/review_baudolino.html
(I didn't read that review, I'm just too lazy to explain the book for you.)
If that's still not serious enough, 'Blindness' by Jose Saramago should impress the pants off the book store girl, if she has half a clue. Although if she doesn't, you can't go wrong with Margaret Atwood.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
(Incidentally, any book with a big gold sticker reading "Oprah's book club" on the front is automatically disqualified from my recommended reading list, no matter how much I enjoyed it when it first came out.)
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Not to mention that you can't unload 'em on the used-book buyers. The people at Powell's just sneer at you if you dare soil their counter with Oprah retreads,
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Michele Sims
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
It's upsetting. She's got some brilliant books on that reading list that I couldn't bear to show my face any more if I recommended. Once I read 'Fall On Your Knees' by Anne Marie Macdonald, which is an extremely well-written book, and I told a friend to pick it up, but in between the time I read it and the time my friend found it in the store, Oprah had stolen it forever. Not only did my friend refuse to buy it, but I got an earful about suggesting it in the first place. Boo Hoo. Evil Oprah and her Evil Book Club.
Actually it's great what she's doing, I just wish publishers would stop splashing it all over the covers of perfectly respectable books.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
They splash because it sells books.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by Michele Sims
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Libraries usually have pre-Oprahfied books and they'll let you read 'em for free. Of course after they've been Oprahfied you might have to put it on reserve to get ahold of it and run the risk of the girl behind the counter thinking you're reserving it because of the Oprahfication.
Ya just can't win for trying.
Anyway, as per recommendations, give a shot at Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume. I hesitate at recommending anything by Robbins, as I have this love hate relationship with him. He's a masterful writer, but he knows it and likes to show it off. It's like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes to show how clever and funny it was.
But he is clever and funny, so I can't help reading him.
But Jitterbug Perfume is the one book of his that I've read more than once, because it's worth it.
Anything by Eco. He's Robbins' Good Twin. Just as masterful, just as funny, but in a far more subtle way, ten times more erudite, but the erudition is just what Eco is. It comes through in his writting because he is intelligent and educated, but he writes in what, for him, is his "natural" voice. There's no sense that he's being "clever" in the text itself.
The Name of the Rose is his most "accessable" book, if you don't get hung up on the Latin, but if you've read The DiVinci Code you'll want to start with Focoult's Pendulum to see how the story is told right.
KFG
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by KFG
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Jitterbug Perfume! I was thinking of that book the other day--been ages since I've read it. Great book.
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by dmarie
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
There can't be too many female wooden flute players in Edinburgh Q - I hope this character "Heather", in the book is shown in a good light!
# Posted on August 30th 2005 by On Sabbatical
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
P.S., Just to forstall any possible issues that some people have with The Name of the Rose I will point out that the name of the rose is. . ."rose."
KFG
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by KFG
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
After I read Jitterbug Perfume, I was raving one evening to a friend about what a fantastic novel it was. She was not impressed. Once you've read one Tom Robbins, she said, you've read them all. Six Robbins novels later, I must concede she was not wrong.
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by Q
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Yeah, pretty much. That's why I only recommended the one.
KFG
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by KFG
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
One of my favorite giant tomes is the Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. Its been around for a while so you've probably already read it. But if not, it will occupy you for some time. Good story that action in 17th century London and in the colonies.
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by John Culhane
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Good story WITH action in 17th century London ...
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by John Culhane
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Railroad's writing that kind of fantasy these days?!? Man, I've been out of fandom for a looonnngggg time, haven't I. Last thing of his I read was... was... part of Armageddon Rag, I think.
Tom Robbins reminds me a bit of James Joyce, in that he's so busy being gleeful about how good he is that he rather gets in his own light. I read Cowgirls and got to the end of it and wondered why I had gotten involved enough in it to either like it or be irritated by it, both of which I was. Never got to anything else of his.
Giant tomes... how about Gerard's Herbal, which a friend of mine has nicknamed "the hernia herbal"? Not much plot but plenty of reading; it's a large (as in 9"x12") hardback, about 4" thick. Should convince the girl at the bookshop that you're impossibly erudite, too. *evil grin*
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by sara g
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
The Da-vinci code. Awsome book, especially as I used to belong to a now poisoned by money organisation called St John's Ambulance Brigade, which is a branch from the Order of St John, which was started by the Knights of St John. always knew they were hiding something....
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by Folkie Junkie
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
Giant tomes? I recommend:
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes (nonfiction--about the founding of Australia)
Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage and Stones of Aran: Labyrinth by Tim Robinson (both nonfiction--about Inishmore, gets pretty scientific at times, but two really beautiful books essentially about how landscape shapes culture and vice versa)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (another nonfiction, sciencey/naturey book, really beautifully written and thought-provoking, won the Pulitzer in the 70s)
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (true fiction--about Gary Gilmore, parts of it are pretty sad, don't know if that's something you're after right now)
Mosquito by Gayl Jones (fiction--very post-modern, digressionary, stream-of-consciousness-y with a vengeance, what the author describes as a "jazz novel")
Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell (nonfiction--not a massive tome, but an excellent book about the disappearing Louisiana coast/bayou country and Cajun culture. I read this a couple months ago and learned a lot about Louisiana and the Cajun, American Indian, and Vietnamese communities along the coast. The author offers some gorgeous descriptions of the coast down there, and he pretty much predicts all the devastation that's happened in the last few days (the book was published in 2003).
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by Roe
Re: Trad cameo in John Irving's new novel
"A Fine Balance" or "Such a Long Journey" by Rohinton Mistry. Wonderful stories set in the Parsi community in Bombay.
# Posted on August 31st 2005 by grego