Current Reading - Books best thread

[Ginger Yellow]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Hwæt, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle,

hwæt mē gemætte to midre nihte,

syðþan reordberend reste wunedon.

þūhte mē þæt ic gesāwe syllicre trēow

5 on lyft lædan lēohte bewunden,

bēama beorhtost. Eall þæt bēacen wæs

begoten mid golde. Gimmas stōdon

fægere æt foldan scēatum, swylce þær fife wæron

uppe on þām eaxlgespanne. Behēoldon þær engel dryhtnes ealle,

10 fægere þurh forðgesceaft. Ne wæs ðær hūru fracodes gealga,

ac hine þær behēoldon hālige gāstas,

men ofer moldan ond eall þēos mære gesceaft.

Syllic wæs se sigebēam, ond ic synnum fāh,

forwunded mid wommum. Geseah ic wuldres trēow,

15 wædum geweorðod wynnum scīnan,

gegyred mid golde; gimmas hæfdon

bewrigen weorðlīce wealdendes trēow.

Hwæðre ic þurh þæt gold ongytan meahte

earmra ærgewin, þæt hit ærest ongan

20 swætan on þā swīðran healfe. Eall ic wæs mid sorgum gedrēfed,

forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe. Geseah ic þæt fūse bēacen

105 RECTO

wendan wædum ond blēom; hwīlum hit wæs mid wætan bestēmed,

beswyled mid swātes gange, hwīlum* mid since gegyrwed.

Hwæðre ic þær licgende lange_hwīle

25 behēold hrēowcearig hælendes trēow,

oð ðæt ic gehyrde þæt hit hlēoðrode.

Ongan þā word sprecan wudu sēlesta:

‘Þæt wæs gēara_iū, (ic þæt gyta geman),

þæt ic wæs āhēawen holtes on ende,

30 āstyred of stefne mīnum. Genāman mē ðær strange fēondas,

geworhton him þær tō wæfersyne, hēton mē heora wergas hebban.

Bæron mē þær beornas on eaxlum, oððæt hīe mē on beorg āsetton,

gefæstnodon mē þær fēondas genōge. Geseah ic þā frean mancynnes

efstan elne micle, þæt hē mē wolde on gestīgan.

35 Þær ic þā ne dorste ofer dryhtnes word

būgan oððe berstan, þā ic bifian geseah

eorðan scēatas. Ealle ic mihte

fēondas gefyllan, hwæðre ic fæste stōd.

Ongyrede hine þā geong hæleð, (þæt wæs god ælmihtig),

40 strang ond stīðmōd. Gestāh hē on gealgan hēanne,

mōdig on manigra gesyhðe, þā hē wolde mancyn lysan.

Bifode ic þā mē se beorn ymbclypte. Ne dorste ic hwæðre būgan tō eorðan,

feallan tō foldan scēatum, ac ic sceolde fæste standan.

Rōd wæs ic āræred. Āhōf ic rīcne cyning,

45 heofona hlāford, hyldan mē ne dorste.

Þurhdrifan hī mē mid deorcan næglum. On mē syndon þā dolg gesīene,

opene inwidhlemmas. Ne dorste ic hira ænigum sceððan.

Bysmeredon hīe unc būtū ætgædere. Eall ic wæs mid blōde bestēmed,

begoten of þæs guman sīdan, siððan hē hæfde his gāst onsended.

50 ‘Feala ic on þām beorge gebiden hæbbe

wrāðra wyrda. Geseah ic weruda god

þearle þenian. Þystro hæfdon

bewrigen mid wolcnum wealdendes hræw,

scīrne scīman, sceadu forð ēode,

55 wann under wolcnum. Wēop eal gesceaft,

cwīðdon cyninges fyll. Crīst wæs on rōde.

Hwæðere þær fūse feorran cwōman

tō þām æðelinge. Ic þæt eall behēold.

Sāre ic wæs sorgum gedrēfed, hnāg ic hwæðre þām secgum tō handa,

60 ēaðmōd elne mycle. Genāmon hīe þær ælmihtigne god,

āhōfon hine of ðām

105 VERSO

hefian wīte. Forlēton mē þā hilderincas

standan stēame bedrifenne; eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod.

Ālēdon hīe þær limwērigne, gestōdon him æt his līces hēafdum,

behēoldon hīe þær heofenes dryhten, ond hē hine þær hwīle reste,

65 mēðe æfter ðām miclan gewinne. Ongunnon him þā moldern wyrcan

beornas on banan gesyhðe; curfon hīe ðæt of beorhtan stāne,

gesetton hīe ðæron sigora wealdend. Ongunnon him þā sorhlēoð galan

earme on þā æfentīde, þā hīe woldon eft sīðian,

mēðe fram þām mæran þēodne. Reste hē ðær mæte weorode.

70 Hwæðere wē ðær grēotende gōde hwīle

stōdon on staðole, syððan stefn up gewāt

hilderinca. Hræw cōlode,

fæger feorgbold. Þā ūs man fyllan ongan

ealle tō eorðan. Þæt wæs egeslic wyrd!

75 Bedealf ūs man on dēopan sēaþe. Hwæðre mē þær dryhtnes þegnas,

frēondas gefrūnon,

ond gyredon mē golde ond seolfre.

‘Nū ðū miht gehyran, hæleð mīn se lēofa,

þæt ic bealuwara weorc gebiden hæbbe,

80 sārra sorga. Is nū sæl cumen

þæt mē weorðiað wīde_on_sīde

menn ofer moldan, ond eall þēos mære gesceaft,

gebiddaþ him tō þyssum bēacne. On mē bearn godes

þrōwode hwīle. Forþan ic þrymfæst nū

85 hlīfige under heofenum, ond ic hælan mæg

æghwylcne ānra, þāra þe him bið egesa tō mē.

Iū ic wæs geworden wīta heardost,

lēodum lāðost, ær þan ic him līfes weg

rihtne gerymde, reordberendum.

90 Hwæt, mē þā geweorðode wuldres ealdor

ofer holtwudu, heofonrīces weard!

Swylce swā hē his mōdor ēac, Marīan sylfe,

ælmihtig god for ealle menn

geweorðode ofer eall wīfa cynn.

95 ‘Nu ic þē hāte, hæleð mīn se lēofa,

þæt ðū þās gesyhðe secge mannum,

onwrēoh wordum þæt hit is wuldres bēam,

se ðe ælmihtig god on þrōwode

for mancynnes manegum synnum

100 ond Adomes ealdgewyrhtum.

Dēað hē þær byrigde, hwæðere eft dryhten ārās

mid his miclan mihte mannum tō helpe.

Hē ðā on heofanas āstāg. Hider eft fundaþ

on þysne middangeard mancynn sēcan

105 on

106 RECTO

dōmdæge dryhten sylfa,

ælmihtig god, ond his englas mid,

þæt hē þonne wile dēman, se āh dōmes geweald,

ānra gehwylcum swā hē him ærur hēr

on þyssum lænum līfe geearnaþ.

110 Ne mæg þær ænig unforht wesan

for þām worde þe se wealdend cwyð.

Frīneð hē for þære mænige hwær se man sīe,

se ðe for dryhtnes naman dēaðes wolde

biteres onbyrigan, swā hē ær on ðām bēame dyde.

115 Ac hīe þonne forhtiað, ond fēa þencað

hwæt hīe to Crīste cweðan onginnen.

Ne þearf ðær þonne ænig anforht wesan

þe him ær in breostum bereð bēacna sēlest,

ac ðurh ðā rōde sceal rīce gesēcan

120 of eorðwege æghwylc sāwl,

sēo þe mid wealdende wunian þenceð."

Gebæd ic mē þā to þām bēame blīðe mōde,

elne mycle, þær ic āna wæs

mæte werede. Wæs mōdsefa

125 āfysed on forðwege, feala ealra gebād

langunghwīla. Is mē nū līfes hyht

þæt ic þone sigebēam sēcan mōte

āna oftor þonne ealle men,

well weorþian. Mē is willa tō ðām

130 mycel on mōde, ond mīn mundbyrd is

geriht tō þære rōde. Nāh ic rīcra feala

frēonda on foldan, ac hīe forð heonon

gewiton of worulde drēamum, sōhton him* wuldres cyning,

lifiaþ nū on heofenum mid hēahfædere,

135 wuniaþ on wuldre, ond ic wēne_mē

daga gehwylce hwænne mē dryhtnes rōd,

þe ic hēr on eorðan ær scēawode,

on þysson lænan līfe gefetige

ond mē þonne gebringe þær is blis mycel,

140 drēam on heofonum, þær is dryhtnes folc

geseted tō symle, þær is singāl blis,

ond mē þonne āsette þær ic syððan mōt

wunian on wuldre, well mid þām hālgum

drēames brūcan. Sī mē dryhten frēond,

145 se ðe hēr on eorðan ær þrōwode

on þām gealgtrēowe for guman synnum.

Hē ūs onlysde ond ūs līf forgeaf,

heofonlicne hām. Hiht wæs genīwad

mid blēdum ond mid blisse þām þe þær bryne þolodan.

150 Se sunu wæs sigorfæst on þām siðfate,

mihtig ond spēdig, þā hē mid manigeo cōm,

gāsta weorode, on godes rīce,

anwealda ælmihtig, englum tō blisse

ond eallum ðām hālgum þām þe on heofonum ær

155 wunedon on wuldre, þā heora wealdend cwōm,

ælmihtig god, þær his ēðel wæs.

[Ginger Yellow]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Damn you, OTF, and your hatred of non-standard characters.

[WOM]

Current Reading - Books best thread

You're a pretty non-standard character and we like you fine. That last post, however...

[Ginger Yellow]

Current Reading - Books best thread

This link may be more helpful.

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

After a post-Christmas reading lull Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf is my new choice of reading. I hope it's more like with his excellent I, Lucifer than the miserable Death Of An Ordinary Man.

After that I'm re-reading David Mitchell's Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and trying The World That Never Was, which I picked up on the off-chance on Sunday and seems to be a lightweight history of 19th century anarchists and revolutionaries.

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Well, The Last Werewolf was very good, a proper rollicking action read, werewolves and vampires and paramilitary organisations hunting them, but without a shadow of sub-Buffy or Twilight romanticism, and a cut above in the writing and the thinking. Highly recommended.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Just finished Jon Savage's Teenage, a history of teenage sub-culture from 1875 to 1945. Especially good on the period leading up to the Second World War, contrasting UK, US and German youth lifestyles.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Ah, that looks good. Does he do a bit about the discotheque being invented in Paris in the 1920s (or whenever it was)?

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I love the pace of 'Books', that you can come back three days later to answer the question without the thread having moved an inch.

There's nothing about that, LL, just a page or so about the wild party scene in Paris in the 1920s, and how lots of Americans came over to hang out there because it was cheap and socially liberated, and you could hang loose with Jean Cocteau and Raymond Radiguet.

[The Exploding Vole]

Current Reading - Books best thread

imp wrote:

Just finished Jon Savage's Teenage, a history of teenage sub-culture from 1875 to 1945. Especially good on the period leading up to the Second World War, contrasting UK, US and German youth lifestyles.

That's gone straight onto my wish-list.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow

Really enjoyed the first 90 or so pages, with their good humour, lush descriptions of London during wartime, and intriguing ideas about technology, causality and what-not seeping out. But the subsequent 50 have been parochially American, uninvolving drivel. Should I bother?

I can do epic novels - last one I read was Robert Musil's 1130-page The Man Without Qualities, which I loved unreservedly - but I'm beginning to wish that American men in particular wouldn't. This one's shaping up to be another William Gaddis situation: a potentially brilliant 350-pager wrapped up inside all the bits the editor should have burned. No wonder this guy never shows his face. (Vineland was good though.)

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

There's another good 50 pages or so towards the end, if I recall correctly. But this drivel of which you speak does go on for awhile.

[WOM]

Current Reading - Books best thread

imp wrote:

I love the pace of 'Books', that you can come back three days later to answer the question without the thread having moved an inch.

Or, as I did today, following your own 'I've just ordered it' post with the review of same.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

OK, I've not posted in here for awhile because, well, I've barely been able to read for the last few months. Work. 'Nuff said. I have read some stuff, I guess - Tony Judt's last book on social democracy, Karl Maier on Nigeria and some others which I knw I;ve read but can;t even remember - but I can't say I've taken a lot of pleasure in reading. I've only time to do it in fits and starts and I can never get a good head of steam going.

It's weird not to read.

Anyways, this isn't why I'm posting. I'm posting becasue I think I've found the perfect OTF policy book. It's called Arrival City by Doug Saunders.

It;s a cracking books about the migration of the rural poor to the cities (and specifically to areas of towns full of recent migrants that he calls "arrival cities") - both in the developing world and the developed world. It's great because it covers all sorts of themes we always argue about - immigration, globalization, the role of the state, mutliculturalism, social mobility, politics in the developing world - and does it from a very global point of view, with examples from Brazil, Colombia, Canada, the US, Africa, India, China, Iran, Turkey, Germany, France and the UK, etc. Even nineteenth century London gets a chapter (in what I call "the Tubby Chapter") as a precursor to today's modern migrations.

his view is that this urbanizatoion is great but vastly misunderstood thing. What people see is squalor and poverty at the edge of major cities, he says is really the bottom rungs of a ladder into the urban middle class - but more than that, it;s also a way to reduce rural poverty, as these "arrival cities" send remittances back to their hom villages (there's a great chapter on how rural Bangladesh has changed thanks to money from Tower Hamlets).

The success or failure of arrival cities rest on whether or not they allow residents to actuall access the middle class or not. he has fine words for Canada, Spain, Turkey and some of Lula's policies in Brazil. Germany, France and China put too many barriers in the way and they make it difficult - this stores up social problems as the residents become frustrated at the inability to move up.

One important point he makes is that successful arrival cities - by their nature - are always poor. if you just look at the neighbouthood income, you;d think it's a spot of grinding, permanent poverty - but in fact, the succsful ones simply house a succession of poor people - as the older ones integrate, move up and move out into the middle class.

His policy prescriptions - get people into property ownership and entrepreneurship as quickly as possible and follow that up with security, some basic utilities (electricity being most important), public transport to the centres of work and good educational opportunities. Concentation of particular ethnic groups can be good. Urban planning, for the most part, is a bad idea - you want these areas to have the kind of chaos you see in villages because it actually makes for a more cohesive neighbourhood (Le Corbusier deserves to be put on tiral for crimes against humanity).

Anyways, I wish everyone here could read it because I think we'd have a cracking discussion.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

One important point he makes is that successful arrival cities - by their nature - are always poor. if you just look at the neighbouthood income, you;d think it's a spot of grinding, permanent poverty - but in fact, the succsful ones simply house a succession of poor people - as the older ones integrate, move up and move out into the middle class.

Not true in Canada surely?

Is this the Doug Saunders that writes for G&M?

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Yes, that Saunders.

It certainly works that way in Toronto. He paints a very interesting portrait of Thornhill - which since being built in the 1960s has gone through Macedonian, Arab and now Afghan/Pakistani phases. Downtown is arguanly the same. Kensingotn became Chinese and is now Latin American; Dundas and Ossington is no longer Portuguese - there are more Brazilians there now, etc etc.

The socio-economic condition of the neighbourhood remains the same - but the same is not true of residents because they are just passing through.

[ursus arctos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Are you typing with your feet?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I don't think you see that pattern here at all. The original Chinatown is split between the poverty of the Downtown Eastside and increased yuppiefication of Strathcona. No other immigrant groups moved in. Japantown was always small as most incomers were fisherman so lived outside town and most lost their property during internment. Thus no second wave of immigrants. The Greek area was Kitsilano, then we hippies moved in, grew up, stayed and got rich. Again no second immigrant influx. Commercial Drive was the Italian neighbourhood, same thing: counterculture types in the 80s took it over, achieved affluence and remained. More recent waves of immigrants from India, Korea, China and so on have settled in specific suburbs and tend to stay there. That is why Richmond looks like, and is probably more wealthy than, Taipei and Whalley like Seoul.

[linus]

Current Reading - Books best thread

It's amazing that the Japanese community has still not been able to recover its property.

I've read Flower Children by Maxine Swann, an autobiographical novel about the author and her three siblings growing up outside the grid in 1970/80s rural Pennsylvania. An interesting personal insight into the lives of hippie siblings.

I picked up a few books with local themes and authors while in Istanbul, Including Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence.

My last local haul includes "Saturday Night At the Bagel Factory and Other Montreal Stories" by Don Bell, a collection of short stories about the city and its characters.



I also found some interesting books in the nature and travel section of a good local used books store including those:


A book on her childhood in a wild and remote part of the Scottish coast in the 1930s.


Journey with a naturalist deep inside the Tibetan Plateau tracking snow leopards, by the author of "At Play in the Fields of the Lord"


Late 19th century notes and essays by Richard Jefferies about country life in rural England.

I posted pictures of these books/editions because I'm often guilty of judging books by their covers...

[San Bernardhinault]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Recent reading includes:

The Tony Judt book that Toto mentions, which is harmless enough but felt a bit flat

Paul Auster's New York Trilogy which was dreary and self-involved and tiresome as fuck and annoyed the hell out of me. It's the second Auster book I've read, with the same response from me. What's the point of him?

Hilary Mantel's 8 months on Gazzah Street, which is very interesting, although it has a very bleak vision of Saudi society.

Dan Brown's latest, which amazingly manages to be worse than Angels and Demons.

Jon Macgregor's Even The Dogs which is turgid and bleak and difficult and depressing, without being particularly rewarding.

All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman, a lovely little romantic novella.

The Other Hand, by Chris Cleave, which felt desperately hand-wringy. Just too obvious smash you around the head unsubtle commentary on how terribly badly we treat our immigrants. It might be true, but it has all the subtlety of a steamroller and becomes tiresome as a result.

Ned Baumann's Boxer Beetle, which I think could get some love on here. Vaguely steampunky, vaguely detectivey, fltting back and forth between the modern era and pre-WWII London. It feels quite like the first novel that it is, perhaps more full of ideas, and a not fully mature writing style, but really good fun.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Current Reading - Books best thread

La Lanterne Rouge, I agree with you about Auster's New York Trilogy but I have given some of his other books a chance, the one that sticks out is The Music of Chance.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

ursus arctos wrote:

Are you typing with your feet?

Gimme a break. It was long after midnight.

Amor, I think I've done violence to Saunders' thesis by focusing on successive waves of ethnic immigration.

Saunders doesn't make distinctions between arrival cities inhabited by people from other countries orpeople who arrived from within the same country - in the end, they are all village people trying to build a new life in an alien environment.

Anyways, the point isn't that in arrival cities one ethnic group gets replaced by another - it's that the arrival city is a temporary place for any arriving family. A chinatown can be an arrival city if it gives new immigrants a way to get on their feet in a new country and then moves them out within a generation to become part of the domestic middle class - so too can shantytowns built by internal immigrants (he has some nice stories about how this happened in Turkey, for instance).

Where it becomes problematic (as with arrival cities in Germany and France, for example) is when the arrival city is designed in such a way that it does not permit new arivals to get a foothold in the middle class, either by restrictions on business registrations, poor educational opportunities, or poor public transport to areas with jobs.

I'm not totally sure how that would work with Vancouver...I suspect it is a bit different because so many of its chinese immigrants were *not* village people to start with...presumably those regions of the lower mainland which are now majority-Sikh would be closer to his definition.

[WOM]

Current Reading - Books best thread

La Lanterne Rouge wrote:

Ned Baumann's Boxer Beetle, which I think could get some love on here. Vaguely steampunky, vaguely detectivey, fltting back and forth between the modern era and pre-WWII London. It feels quite like the first novel that it is, perhaps more full of ideas, and a not fully mature writing style, but really good fun.

Ordered. Will report back.

[ursus arctos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I think that you really need to have lived here to "get" the New York Trilogy, and that even having done so is no guarantee of doing so. Even as someone who ate at Moon Palace a dozen or more times while I was at Columbia, I was far from overwhelmed.

Gramsci, I think you've convinced me on the arrival cities book, though I already have more than a dozen volumes on my "to read" pile.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I'm not totally sure how that would work with Vancouver...I suspect it is a bit different because so many of its chinese immigrants were *not* village people to start with...presumably those regions of the lower mainland which are now majority-Sikh would be closer to his definition.

Not only Chinese. In fact immigration into Vancouver itself over the past two or three decades has been primarily economic. On the whole most people moving here are not, by local standards "poor." For instance one of the top five immigrant groups are Iranians, many of whom moved right into West Vancouver, which is one of the wealthier parts of the GVRD. There have been exceptions in recent times: waves of Vietnamese, Filipino and Latin American refugees, for instance but they tended not to congregate in large numbers in specific neighbourhoods. There are Vietnamese retail stores stretched along Kingsway for example but no commensurate residential area. The city has also done its best to encourage an equivalent to Chinatown in what was the traditionally Sikh area of South Fraser but it hasn't really worked. Because, once again, while the community may shop there and retain ties to the temple, they don't live there anymore.