What oldish fiction are you reading?

[Average Comedy Enjoyer]

Why bother reading such huge books when you can just put a coin in the giant automated Gormenghast.

If you mention the books to my dad he'll always say:

• Mervyn ended up getting dementia
• Because of MP being born in China, it might be more likely we should imagine the castle a Chinese Castle (🏯) not a European one (🏰)

While fact checking that I just found out his grandson is the singer Jack Peñate

[lauraxsynthesis]

Been making my way through The Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth and Marvels - a collection of dozens of short stories published in the 1830s & 40s, massively influential on other writers for 100 years but now out of print. They were generally comedy horror, written in rhyme and set in Kent.  All were written anonymously by
Richard Harris Barham, a Canterbury-born vicar. Various editions included terrific illustrations by George Cruikshank, John Leech, John Tenniel and Arthur Rackham.

Here's a Cruikshank one:


Here's a Rackham one:


This story is my fave so far with a witch and magic and murder and fun rhymes and wordplay - The Hand of Glory: the Nurse's Story

Excerpt:
In Rochester town,
At the sign of the Crown,
Three shabby-genteel men are just sitting down
To a fat stubble-goose, with potatoes done brown;
When a little Foot-page
Rushes in, in a rage,
Upsetting the apple-sauce, onions, and sage.
That little Foot-page takes the first by the throat,
And a little pug-dog takes the next by the coat,
And a Constable seizes the one more remote;
And fair rose-nobles and broad moidores,
The Waiter pulls out of their pockets by scores,
And the Boots and the Chambermaids run in and stare;
And the Constable says, with a dignified air,
'You're wanted, Gen'lemen, one and all,
For that 'ere precious lark at Tappington Hall!'

[bgmnts]

Just finished Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

What a fantastic novel! Chock-full of themes like Providence, religion, class, slavery, paranoia etc all set within the historical context of the 17th/18th century, and Defoe's own life experiences.

When you realise what Defoe went through; the fire of London, the Plague, political and religious persecution etc, you can definitely see him as Crusoe: wondering why Providence spared him. He also touches on he middle sort during this period, Crusoes father overtly says they're blessed, unlike the lower or upper classes, and that transgressing this is going against Gods order. But Crusoe manages to survive on the island because he's middle class: pious, intelligent, and, of course, insanely industrious.

The first half deals with that, and then the second half deals with slavery. And that's where I suppose it gets quite colonial. Slavery - perhaps English slavery - seems to be no bad thing to Crusoe, even though he's briefly a slave himself, and it's his desire for more slaves on his plantation that gets him marooned. So fuck knows. The natives are all savage cannibals, except for his rescued companion/slave Friday, who Crusoe immediately converts. Lovely stuff.

There's so much to analyse here but I'm sure it's been done to death at 300 years old. Indeed, the Oxford World Classics edition - by Thomas Keyner - was so heavily referenced and explained, you can tell there is a lot of material out there to draw from. The novel clearly inspires passions, as many OWC are not as nearly robust as this.

Anyway, would recommend heartily/10

[bgmnts]

Also finished The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes.

   It doesn't get more classic than this! And I really, really enjoyed it. It almost feels quite modern as an adventure story, with a non-traditional hero in Jason, and quite a complex female lead in Medea. I've read it's quite Homeric in style, but I haven't finished Illiad or Odyssey so will have to defer on that.
   Unsure if it's the translation but as well as there being some lovely descriptions, the way Apollonius uses similies is gloriously laboured, and they sometimes come out like waffly Karl Pilkington rockbuster clues.
   There's also surprising acts of grotesque violence that is casually mentioned, notably where a man gets his head cut vertically in two, and both halves flop down and rest on their respective shoulders. There's also a bit where a man gets an eyelid ripped off and his exposed eye shows. Lovely.
   There is little in way of deep characterisation so your imagination does a lot of legwork, but I quite enjoyed Amykos, King of the Bebryces, who compels any stranger of his land to a one on one boxing match; a proper psycho who we can all imagine and have probably met.

The character of Medea stood out though, as a woman torn between her inexplicable love (lust?) for Jason and her so much so that my next read is Euripides' Medea. And I think Medea typifies this theme that romantic love is dangerous - in fact Apollonius writes 'deadly love'. Medea is also the victim of the naughty gods, who seem to just see humans, even demigod humans, as playthings. It is funny that these people prayed to them so often yet admitted they were just as human as they were.

Would recommend/10.

[Poobum]

Enjoyed Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley. Nice bit of farce. In my head it played out like a very knowing 1930s sophisticated comedy film with everyone trading quips in posh voices.

[bgmnts]

Really enjoyed a collection of Euripides plays, translated in more of a prose form than verse. I especially enjoyed Medea. There's an almost proto-feminist quality about it.

Not exactly literature I suppose but it has made me want to read the other Greek Tragedians, see if they're any cop.

[Dayraven]

There are only two other Greek Tragedians who have surviving plays, and all three are of similar status.

Euripides is the most 'modern', seeming to subvert the form at times. Aeschylus is the earliest and most moralistic — the Orestia/House of Atreus trilogy is the best choice to sample his work, or Prometheus Bound. Sophocles fits quite well as the balanced middle between them, with Oedipus Rex as his key play. Partly because of its cultural importance with what Freud made of it, but quite a lot of its power comes from effectively being a detective story where the investigator discovers he's the guilty party. Antigone is his next most important play.

[bgmnts]

That's good to know! I think I may have a copy of Antigone somewhere, and so may read that.

Although probably should start by finally finishing Homer and maybe Hesiod's stuff first.

[bgmnts]

Les Liaisons dangeureuse by Choderlos de Laclos.

An fantastic novel it took a lot out of me. It' an epistolary novel featuring several characters which mostly works. It removes tension, but allows Laclos to give delve deep into character. The duel protagonists are rotten to the core - genuinely loathsome libertine fuckers - but there is just enough ambiguity at certain points to add some nuance, especially toward the end.

Has anyone else read this? There feels like a lot of interpretation could be had here due to the nature of the narration, and would be intrigued to hear other people's thoughts.

I realised the last few things I've read have been extremely cynical toward love, and have dealt with female characters through the eyes of a male author, so I think to balance it out I'm going to read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My hope is they might portray women in a different way and not leave me as cynical and fucked up as the last few things I've read!

[bgmnts]

I think to balance it out I'm going to read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My hope is they might portray women in a different way and not leave me as cynical and fucked up as the last few things I've read!

Well this backfired; I'm none the wiser of love from the perspective of love, I don't think.

The former was definitely more interesting the latter, as it went all gothic and crime driven (although the twist is perhaps a tad ridiculous).
Pride and Prejudice is possibly the weakest of all the classics I've read.

Just felt like a bit of a middle class wet dream, and I found the character of Elizabeth Bennet to be quite unlikable, which I can't imagine was Austen's intention.
Also, her sentence structure was quite convoluted at times, and a pain in the arse for someone terminally deficit in attention!

I may be one of the few on that one, though. I do think I may try another Austen novel, as I do think she has just enough about her that pulls me in; her sense of humour, for one.

[Dayraven]

Not that keen on Austen either, but I think part of what's going on is that more than most classics it's playing off a lot of social assumptions that would have been shared unspoken then but are hard to deduce from the text now.

[bgmnts]

Yeah I definitely tried to read a lot of it with a hint of irony, and obviously yeah those rigid regency social conventions are absolutely abysmal to us now, but at the same time Austen writes her protagonist as judgmental, hypocritical and quite snobbish and smug. Maybe Austen was herself, who knows.

[bgmnts]

I just finished Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

What a beautiful novel this is. I think it's considered his best work and it doesn't surprise me. I think A Christmas Carol is one of my favourite stories ever written, but this comes close, and is in many instances better.

Of course Dickens has been overdone and I presume is considered a bit ridiculous with silly character names and inventing a melodramatic Victorian London. How well written his characters are, though: Mr Jagger, Miss Havisham, Magwitch and Wemmick are all quite fascinating.

It did indeed seem firmly rooted in its Victorian London setting, yet at the same time felt timeless; a story of heartbreak, bitterness, hope, and, of course, expectations.

It's interesting that Dickens and Hugo simuktaneously wrote a novel that centers around an act of kindness that changes a convict's life. I wonder if working class Pip saving Magwitch reflects the Victorian middle class belief that the working classes can be responsible for themselves through self-reliance; Valjean, though, is saved by an agent of God, and so reflects the importance of Catholic charity? Waffling here.

Anyway, Dickens is the tits, and I love him. I very much enjoy his prose, his descriptions of London, and the humour that permeates throughout.

This description of Pip's new London home immediately captured my imagination:

I thought the windows of the sets of chambers into which these houses were divided, were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled flower-date, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable make-shift; while To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new wretched ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants and their unholy interment under the gravel.

10/10!

[bgmnts]

Breezed through Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne.

A fine adventure that speaks to an exciting new global world of the late nineteenth century. Compared to Wells, Verne seems to be much more into the science and technology, is much less fantastical, and more optimistic (although 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea seems a dire warning).

I imagine reading this in the 1870s would have blown people away. Grand Tour aristocrats of the 1700s, tales of pirates and exploration, but to travel around the entire world in one go - the result of decades of imperial industry - would have been incredible. Verne does describe in detail workings of machines and routes taken, and I think that's where his heart lies: a romantic adventure, where humans conquer the world and are in control of their own destiny through reason and science and technology.

There is a hint of sadness in my opinion, when you read that there are English towns all along the route in India and China, and the sense of mystery and exploration dead at the hands of industry and economy. Convenient but less magical. Verne doesn't seem to think so, yet he does also bring out that European Nineteenth Century racism a little bit here and there.. As someone who has done some pathetic 'travelling, the world does seem quite globalised and small.

Fogg epitome of the English gentleman; an odd hero of no emotion. He does good things, and has a sense of ethics and honour, but betrays no thoughts or feelings. Does Verne admire this English coldness? Passepartout is the opposite, having a much more active role in the story. Passepartout, setting out from London and realising he left the gas on made me actually laugh.

The book itself is lovely. It is an Everyman publication and has the usual bumfluffery of introduction, author chronology, EXTENSIVE notes, but with the additions of a critical analysis of the book and a short summary of each chapter. The cover design is great as well, showing a detail of a nineteenth century print of an almanac type thing at the Musee Jules Verne:

There was a funny bit of incompetence by Verne toward the end though, where a sailor he says is from Cardiff is called an American not two pages after! And generally, it could be quite dry and oddly paced (there is no mention of anything happening in Europe for example).

Overall 8/10.

[Dr Rock]

Les Liaisons dangeureuse by Choderlos de Laclos.

An fantastic novel it took a lot out of me. It' an epistolary novel featuring several characters which mostly works. It removes tension, but allows Laclos to give delve deep into character. The duel protagonists are rotten to the core - genuinely loathsome libertine fuckers - but there is just enough ambiguity at certain points to add some nuance, especially toward the end.

Has anyone else read this? There feels like a lot of interpretation could be had here due to the nature of the narration, and would be intrigued to hear other people's thoughts.

I realised the last few things I've read have been extremely cynical toward love, and have dealt with female characters through the eyes of a male author, so I think to balance it out I'm going to read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My hope is they might portray women in a different way and not leave me as cynical and fucked up as the last few things I've read!

ead it about thirty years ago. I think I liked it but I remember fuck all.

I tried De Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom
Made it through ok until this sort of stuff

Part two: December, the complex passions. These anecdotes, written in note form, involve acts such as men who vaginally rape children as young as three and indulge in incest and flagellation. There are tales of men who indulge in sacrilegious activities such as having sex with prostitutes during Mass. The female children are raped vaginally during the evening orgies. Other elements of that month's stories – such as whipping – are sometimes enacted

At which point it was all a bit much for me and I started Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes which was very amusing at times. Recommended.

[bgmnts]

Jesus. Don't think I have it in me to read de Sade either to be honest. I might be done with libertines in general.

Don Quixote is definitely on the list though! Cheers.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes a while back and it was a lot more gripping and fun than I was expecting it to be.

I'm also a big fan of Patrick Hamilton bleakness, Hangover Square and Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky are both excellent.

As is Charles R. Jackson 's Lost Weekend.

Dunno when the cut-off is for oldish but I also read Amos Tutola's Palm Wine Drinkard and that was good too.

Bit of a theme there.

[FeederFan500]

I second Patrick Hamilton, really ought to seek out more of his stuff as I enjoyed what I read.

[bgmnts]

Dunno when the cut-off is for oldish but I also read Amos Tutola's Palm Wine Drinkard and that was good too.

Tis quite vague admittedly. I was going to say pre-war but obviously a novel from 1953 is probably old.

Maybe pre-70s?

[Galeee]

Most of Saki's short stories, set mostly in Edwardian London/country homes, are now freely available online.
I first discovered him in Pan and similar Horror stories anthologies, when I were young, with gems like The Open Window, Sredni Vashtar and Gabriel-Ernest. His themes include the savagery of nature, set against the over civilised upper crust types.

A lot of Golden Age sci fi, apart from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein. Theodore Sturgeon's More The Human, Fritz Leiber and CM Kornbluth's short stories, Zenna Henderson's The People stories and Ray Bradbury's wonderful prose.

I found TF Powys, the less famous brother of John Cowper Powys, in a library sale, and was taken by his weird Christian allegory, mixed with the rustic, in some cases, bestial villagers. The most well known book is Mr Weston's Good Wine, where God arrives in the village as a wine merchant, stops time and attempts to sell some of the villagers his dark wine (of death).

[notjosh]

Have read all of Wilkie Collins' so-called four great novels over the last 2-3 years, and enjoyed them all immensely. They're all big 600 pagers, full of ornate prose, but also thrillingly, compulsively readable.

His two most popular, The Woman in White and The Moonstone, are both constructed out of several first-hand accounts, and he is excellent at not only giving each character a distinctive narration style, but also at layering the information so that the reader is often able to see significance in a character's account that the character does not.

He also writes some very good female characters. Definitely some classic fragile Victorian damsels in there too, but Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White, and Magdalen Vanstone, the anti-heroine of revenge thriller No Name, are both really interesting, and both books are quite strong in their condemnation of the patriarchy.

He was a contemporary and good friend of Dickens, and worth a look if you enjoy Dickens' work. Here's Nora Ephron on The Woman in White, if you don't believe me:

And finally, one day I read the book that is probably the most rapturous book of my adult life. On a chaise lounge at the beach on a beautiful summer day, I open Wilkie Collins's masterpiece, The Woman in White, probably the first great work of mystery fiction ever written (although that description hardly does it justice), and I am instantly lost to the world. Days pass as I savor every word. Each minute I spend away from the book pretending to be interested in everyday life is a misery. How could I have waited so long to read this book? When can I get back to it? Halfway through I return to New York to work, to mix a movie, and I sit in the mix studio unable to focus on anything but whether my favorite character in the book will survive. I will not be able to bear it if anything bad happens to my beloved Marian Halcombe. Every so often I look up from the book and see a roomful of people waiting for me to make a decision about whether the music is too soft or the thunder is too loud, and I can't believe they don't understand that what I'm doing is much more important—I'm reading the most wonderful book.

[bgmnts]

Nice one! Definitely adding The Woman in White to my 'to-read' list. Haven't tackled a 600+ pagers in a long time so will have to build up!

[bgmnts]

Read Ovid's Metamorphoses books I-VIII which I thought was a tad repetitive but I quite liked the narrative of it.

Then, after having it in my possession for an entire decade, upon which I'd only read 97 pages, I decided to plough through The Iliad and The Odyssey.

I must say it was a fucking slog. I had to skim most of Odyssey in the end. I can only say that it perhaps just doesn't work as prose, and maybe reading it in verse or as poetry somehow would make it palatable.

[Dayraven]

The translation will matter a fair bit, though reading both in prose I found the Odyssey's adventure-story structure much easier than the Iliad's battle scenes.

[Underturd]

She is pretty good, but it's the only H Rider Haggard I've read, so it wasn't good enough to make me want to get into Haggard. Same with Beau Geste and Wren.