May's Marvellously Mysterious Manuscript Meanderings

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Ticket Of Leave by Georges Simenon, a story of two outcasts who find a fleeting and ultimately illusory comfort and security in each other's company. Also available as The Widow from NYRB Classics and very, very strongly recommended to Connavar!

 

[GOLLUM]

Ticket Of Leave by Georges Simenon, a story of two outcasts who find a fleeting and ultimately illusory comfort and security in each other's company. Also available as The Widow from NYRB Classics and very, very strongly recommended to Connavar!

May I ask if this is another of his so-called psychological novels?

I still have Dirty Snow, an NYRB edn. you recommened to me, to read.

Did you end up purchasing the Simenon semi autobiography Pedigree? Here's a link in case you do not recall...

http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/pedigree/

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

It's one of his non-series romans durs, yeah. Highly recommended, but read Dirty Snow first! I picked up Pedigree a few months back. I've been reading a lot of Simenon novels this year - two romans durs and three Maigrets.

Now reading Hostage: London by Geofrrey Household, whose excellent Rogue Male is also an NYRB Classic.

 

[GOLLUM]

It's one of his non-series romans durs, yeah. Highly recommended, but read Dirty Snow first! I picked up Pedigree a few months back. I've been reading a lot of Simenon novels this year - two romans durs and three Maigrets.

Now reading Hostage: London by Geofrrey Household, whose excellent Rogue Male is also an NYRB Classic.

Thank you.

You certainly are in Simenon mode at the moment...

Sorry to impose but I've seen Rogue Male before in the shops here but not picked it up. You obviously rate it quite highly. Can you briefly provide your take on this work please?

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Of course, and here's a review I prepared earlier:

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household: Incredible stuff. A big game hunter decides, on what he tells himself is a mere whim, to stalk somewhat bigger game than usual - the dictator of a certain central European nation. He is caught, tortured and left for dead. Only, he refuses to die, battling against crippling injuries and skilled pursuers to make his way back to his native England where he goes to ground - literally - and waits out the chase. It's a harrowing story of self-realisation as the hunter turns hunted and draws on previously untapped reserves of energy and invention as well as of patience and endurance, coming face to face with the true story behind his own motivations in the process. This is a gripping book, but it's also gruelling - there's very little external action - what there is, is swift and brutal - lots and lots of skulking and burrowing and simply biding of time while mental processes tick over. A gripping if unusual (and unusually demanding) thriller and a superb character study. Household's other work seems out of print; if any of it is even a tenth as good as this, he deserves a full-scale revival.

 

[Diggler]

My first as well, but I'm finding it easy enough to get into so far. It seems to be one of his best regarded novels that hasn't been turned into a movie and I didn't want my first book of his to be influenced by the films.

Good to see you are getting into this! While it's his most well known novel, most fans would say Ubik or Flow My Tears the Policeman Said are his best novels.

They are definitely his most accessible stories, and would make excellent movies, if someone was willing to transfer them properly.

 

[GOLLUM]

Wow! That's quite an endorsement of Rogue Male J.P.

Much appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[J-Sun]

Finished Ian Watson's The Embedding. I looked up some stuff on the net to see if I was missing anything, but didn't come across anything. Tenser, Said the Tensor nicely reflects much of my reaction, especially about "this mess resolv[ing] itself to no one's satisfaction" (including, most importantly, the reader's) and I burst out laughing because we both had the same Ed Wood association on his p.231 (my p.196). The linguistic side was much less responsible for my dissatisfaction than the fiction side was - the reverse seems true for the reviewer, but both are relevant critiques. For a much more concise, but still highly accurate, take, there's this blog. This precisely echos my "Um... well, okay... *bleep*" three-stage reaction to the beginning, middle, and end of this frustrating and annoying book.

On the plus side, the Tensor site looks like an awesome find - the stuff on The Languages of Pao and especially the Lensman series was great, too.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Good to see you are getting into this! While it's his most well known novel, most fans would say Ubik or Flow My Tears the Policeman Said are his best novels.

They are definitely his most accessible stories, and would make excellent movies, if someone was willing to transfer them properly.

Man in the High Castle and Scanner Darkly are my favorites. I haven't read the Valis series or Palmer Eldridge yet. Ubik was a bit cheesy but enjoyable for me and Flow My Tears' ending just seemed too implausible.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny.

 

[purple_kathryn]

The Prefect by Alastair Reynold. I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this

 

[Ian Whates]

Finished Ian Watson's The Embedding. I looked up some stuff on the net to see if I was missing anything, but didn't come across anything. For a much more concise, but still highly accurate, take, there's this blog. This precisely echos my "Um... well, okay... *bleep*" three-stage reaction to the beginning, middle, and end of this frustrating and annoying book.

And yet this is a highly regarded work which won France's Prix Apollo, was runner-up for the John W Campbell Award and nominated for a Nebula. Not to mention, of course, that China Mieville sites it as a major influence on his latest novel Embassytown... Just goes to show that we all have different tastes.

 

[HareBrain]

Have to say I found the end of The Embedding unsatisfactory too, and I can't argue with most of the reviewer's criticism's in J-Sun's first link.

But I agree with that reviewer's closing assessment that despite its flaws, it's one of a kind, and I'm glad I've read it -- more so than many more apparently satisfying, but actually far less interesting, books.

 

[Diggler]

Man in the High Castle and Scanner Darkly are my favorites. I haven't read the Valis series or Palmer Eldridge yet. Ubik was a bit cheesy but enjoyable for me and Flow My Tears' ending just seemed too implausible.

I haven't read A Scanner Darkly yet, but will get to it one day. I loved both Ubik and Flow My Tears. While I don't have specific favourites when it comes to PKD books, I do rate those two very highly.

 

[Connavar]

Of course, and here's a review I prepared earlier:

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household: Incredible stuff. A big game hunter decides, on what he tells himself is a mere whim, to stalk somewhat bigger game than usual - the dictator of a certain central European nation. He is caught, tortured and left for dead. Only, he refuses to die, battling against crippling injuries and skilled pursuers to make his way back to his native England where he goes to ground - literally - and waits out the chase. It's a harrowing story of self-realisation as the hunter turns hunted and draws on previously untapped reserves of energy and invention as well as of patience and endurance, coming face to face with the true story behind his own motivations in the process. This is a gripping book, but it's also gruelling - there's very little external action - what there is, is swift and brutal - lots and lots of skulking and burrowing and simply biding of time while mental processes tick over. A gripping if unusual (and unusually demanding) thriller and a superb character study. Household's other work seems out of print; if any of it is even a tenth as good as this, he deserves a full-scale revival.

I saw this novel listed in Crime Masterworks when it was in print in that series and it did pique my interest. It sounds like a must for any fan of a good thriller. It sounds like The Day of the Jackal but earlier.

Also i dislike you for reading so much Simeneon i must get his books but i havent had time to read my already huge book pile

 

[clovis-man]

The Prefect by Alastair Reynold. I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this

A ripping good yarn. But I may a little biased.

Working my way through his Terminal World right now.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Hostage: London by Geoffrey Household, which didn't have the same intensely singular focus as Rogue Male, but was still an excellent thriller with larger themes, fully justifying Household's own description of his work as a cross between Buchan and Conrad.

 

[biodroid]

I decided I need to wrap up some trilogies so I am currently devouring Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks and then I will go onto The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie.

 

[Ursa major]

I finished reading Glasshouse by Charles Stross the other day.

The first paragraph (of Chapter 1, as there's no prologue):

A dark-skinned human with four arms walks toward me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls. Her hair forms a smoky wreath around her open and curious face. She's interested in me.

Glasshouse is set in the same universe, though some centuries later, as the same author's Accelerando, but can't really be be described as a sequel. It's hard to describe the book without supplying spoilers, so I'll keep my comments general. Once I got over the rather slow (to me, at least) beginning, the book took off and was hard to put down. There are plenty of twists and turns, both psychological and physical, in what is essentially an adventure/thriller.

It seems to me that Stross has successfully blended the more serious traits in his work - including comments on society and relationships - with the playfulness of his Laundry series. (Though not exactly a comedy, Glasshouse has many moments when I had to chuckle at the allusions and references.)


All in all, a very enjoyable read.

 

[Vertigo]

That's very interesting Ursa. I recently read Accelerando and had rather mixed feelings about it but am still interested in reading more of his stuff. So that sounds like it might make a good second foray into Stross' work.