Just curious... what books are you wrapping up before beginning Ulysses? I'm chugging through Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume, a goofball epic about immortality, scents, and beets. For some reason I've never read it, even though I once owned a copy (now misplaced) that I bought on Royal Street in New Orleans, the same street a perfume shop featured in the story is situated on.
Is there anything you're bringing to a close at the foot of the mountain?
Rob
8 comments:
I had actually just started 2 books before this thing came up, so I can very easily back burner those and concentrate on Ulysses.
I'm in the home stretch of Johnathon Strange & Mr. Norrell at the moment. To be honest, I'll probably be snacking on some popcorn reading while we're working through the multi-course gourmet feast of Ulysses.
I was under the pressure of a coursework schedule when I pushed through the book in college, and I know there were sections that received less than their rightfully deserved -- and certainly less than my full and undivided -- attention simply because the next seminar session was coming up. And, for the most part, this is not light reading.
Taking into account the fact that it's quite likely I'll not be reading Ulysses a third time in my life, this time around I'm not going to press on through a tough section if I'm not in a fit state to appreciate (or even understand) it. So if I hit a stretch where I need some light reading, I'll grab a popcorn novel or catch up on some comics or graphic novels that have been sitting around patiently.
There's little point in climbing a mountain if you don't give yourself chances to appreciate the views.
(Although, thinking of returns to the book, it'd be interesting to read Ulysses again when I'm sixty or so...)
Well, I'm certainly not going to give up comics for the duration. During Trinity and Final Crisis? And Secret Invasion? Perish the thought, my good man!
And yeah -- I initially wanted to have it finished for Bloomsday, but upon reflection, I decided it was silly to power through a book like this. I should take the time to savor it; I may not pass this way again, and Bloomsday comes every year.
I've just finished reading Neal Stephenson's The System of the World, the third volume of his baroque cycle of erudite swashbuckling. Read the first two in quick succession about two years ago, but then needed a break from the 17th and 18th centuries. That and what I thought was the deterioration of my brain slowing my reading speed has turned out to be more the deterioration of my eyes (I need the weakest reading glasses available, but it makes a difference).
I was about to start William Gibson's Pattern Recognition (I bought at a Gibson reading and signing event at the Free Library of Philadelphia when stateside last year). Oddly my pile of soon to be reads also includes Greg's current read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
B --
I think you'll enjoy JS&MrN. If Neil Gaimen travelled through time and had a torrid one-nighter with Jane Austen, the great-granddaughter of their lovechild would be Susanna Clarke and she would write this novel.
I'm finishing up The Sportswriter by Richard Ford and Slam by Nick Hornby.
I'm wrapping up two books -- Corey Robin's Fear: The History of a Political Idea and Paul Roland's Crime Scenes: Revealing the science behind the evidence. The first is really interesting; the second is sort of seeing if there are any interesting signs of hoaxes or misinformation that I didn't think about before.
I don't really care for the gore factor of those kinds of books, tho.
I'm nearly within sight of the end of Jitterbug Perfume now... going from a book that takes place over a thousand years to one three times as long that takes place in a single day will give me some kind of whiplash.
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