'Right ho Jeeves' by PG Wodehouse, 'Decline and Fall' by Evelyn Waugh (the funniest writer in the English language imo), and 'Crome Yellow' by Aldous Huxley.
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'Right ho Jeeves' by PG Wodehouse, 'Decline and Fall' by Evelyn Waugh (the funniest writer in the English language imo), and 'Crome Yellow' by Aldous Huxley.
There are a few lines from an Ernest Hemingway short story called Out of Season. The speaker is the town drunkard. The drunkard and two other people are on their way to go fishing. Fishing is illegal at that location:
"No one will make any trouble for me. Everybody in this town likes me. I sell frogs." :)
I loved Dostoevsky's "Bobok." It is a short story and provides a social commentary of nineteenth century Russia. Even without a background in Russian history, I think it captures how various people moan about their status no matter which class they are.
Although it is not a book, I highly recommend Gogol's Inspector General. It is a play which humorously deals with corruption and bureaucracy in 19c Russia. Gogol is one of my first recommendations if someone wants to read humorous works in Russian literature.
I discovered this book in a charity shop and I found it hilarious. I have lent it to friends and they all agree.
Also I really enjoyed 'A short history of tractors in Ukranian' by Marina Lewycka.
Just bought Good Omens (Terry Pratched & Neil Gaiman), which promises a lot of fun.
I loved "Bobok", which I read years ago.
"Gogol is one of my first recommendations if someone wants to read humorous works in Russian literature."
Yes, humour used as a instrument of social criticism.
It's superb, and not quite like anything else I've ever come across - I really hope you enjoy it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Danik 2016
Thanks, Loki!
I am still at the beginning, sorting out devils, angels and humans and seeing what they all are up to. :)
interesting timing---on a lark I re-visited this old thread at the same time im about to by looking for my next book to read---and I just recently came across good omens and could use a laugh...Quote:
Originally Posted by Lokasenna
so danik---did you finish the book?
Lol! I didn´t remember this thread from the year I joined LitNet.
Yes I finished the book and I had a lot of fun. But there is wisdom too about human choices of good or evil. I recommend it: Funny, warm, wise and very, very British.
im 62 pages in danik and finding it okay. sometimes a little bizarre, sometimes interesting, sometimes a little chuckle or two, and a bit intriguing.
right now both Crowley and aziraphale, are involved in the life of warlock, the little kid who is supposed to be "the adversary, destroyer of kings, angel of the bottomless pit, great beast that is called dragon, prince of this world, father of lies, spawn of satan and lord of darkness."
I remember it took me some time, Bounty, to get used to the characters.
If I rightly remember the little kid will take its time to be born. There are other issues to be tackled first.
the little kid is very early in the book. he's 11yrs old now but the problem is the satan worshipping nuns messed up switching the babies and "warlock" is the wrong kid. Crowley and aziraphale have figured that out and they are on their way back to the hospital to see if they can rectify the situation.
Yes, i remember about messing up the babies, Bounty.But I don't remember on which side Crowley and aziraphale are.
in the beginning of the book they have a cast of character. aziraphale is described as "an angel, and part-time rare book dealer" and Crowley is described as "an angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards."
the haven't found the kid they are looking for yet, but he (adam) has finally appeared in the book, role-playing the Spanish inquisition with some of his neighborhood friends.
I remember the book being very irreverent. It is one of its charms.
if I am understanding things rightly, Crowley actually likes humanity and he's working together with aziraphale in order to stop Armageddon. so somehow they have to find adam and prevent him from fulfilling his destiny as the anti-Christ.
I suspect the other baby will appear too, but I'm not sure about it.
adam is the other baby---at first they thought warlock was the right one and when he didn't show any signs of being evil by bringing about the end of the world, they abandoned following him and went looking for the other baby by going back to the place where the babies were born, but the records had been destroyed in a fire.
the most recent development, after the faux Spanish inquisition, is that adam seems to somehow be caught up in the disappearance of 500 tons of uranium.
one of the cute/funny things about the book is how every piece of music that gets left in Crowleys car for a certain length of time turns into music from "the best of Queen."
forgot to mention, spritzer wasn't on the porch last night when I went to bed and didn't come when I called her, so she spent her first night outside since I lured her into the house last fall. thankfully she was outside the door on the mat this morning. I let her in to eat, she spent some time wrestling with bark and now she's right back outside.
I think one of the reasons because I remember so little of the plot in spite of enjoying it is because it is a complex novel several things happening at once, and a lot of details.
I am glad to read that Spritzer is well and enjoying life outside, hopefully without bells, with occasional visits to you. Do you know if she has been neutered?
I know one of the fun things about all the tom Clancy novels is how he's got 3 or 4 different concurrent narratives going on that eventually all end up coming together. there is at least something like that with this book, although, sometimes you'll be reading along and go "what the heck does that have to do with the story?"
the book might be a little like Shakespeare in that it takes someone smarter than me to point out x, y and z that im probably oblivious to.
without bells! danik, how will the birds and chipmunks and squirrels and whatever else know there is a killer on the prowl if not for her bells?
yes, you might remember from last summer my telling of the kittens and the aggravation with getting the local shelters/clinics to help with her in a timely fashion before another litter came along and finally one stepped up and let me jump the line with her. I trapped her, took her in, they took her 1 1/2 hours away to a lost cost clinic to get fixed (she was in heat when they did the operation, so we couldn't have been cutting it any closer), brought her back, I went to fetch her, and then let her roam free until the weather got back in the late fall.
in the states, free ranging/wild/homeless cats that have been fixed have a small portion of their left ear clipped to that other concerned people can tell their status.
for the most part I leave the door open. sometimes she disappears for hours at a time. a lot of times she hangs around outside of house and comes and goes.
I have a momma deer who hangs out in my yard and I haven't yet seen spritzer noticing her.
Well, its the technique used with the Brazilian Soapis. I think the authors would be flattered by your comment likening them to Shakespeare. But are you talking about references?
Poor murderous Spitzer! But there must be a lot of small animals in your yard. Some of them I even don't know.
Here in the city we usually have rats and doves. But my Tino
was such a good hunter that I had to rescue the birds he hunted through the net around the balcony.
oh my using Shakespeare in this instance isn't meant as a compliment.
I don't know what youre asking when you enquired about references danik---can you try again?
there is a lot, seemingly, that goes on in the book that doesn't move the story forward. I find that almost a bit tedious.
I live in the woods so plenty of woodland critters yes.
I cant remember the number but the number of birds that are killed by cats every year is a pretty large one.
I accidently made a double post but as opposed to just writing that and leaving the thread, i'll mention that there is some whoppin' big forest fire up in Canada, and its affecting the weather and the conditions where I live many hundreds of miles away. its hazy everywhere and the smell of smoke is in the air. it must be pretty bad...
re: fire in Canada - yes, it's in the news... NYC looks like some of these cities now... https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/...2023-rankings/
... reminds me of home, here in the Gold Country in the Summer - Winter months (Fire season) :(
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
Sorry! With references I mean the great authors or works that influence later works. For example, Homer was a reference of
many modern works of literature and cinema and so was Shakespeare.
Sorry that the novel is becoming tedious.
I heard about the fire in the news. And the admin of another forum I frequent, lives in New York City and there the air is very
bad too. All outdoor activities were called of.
I imagine that animals and plants are also feeling the effects
of the polluted air.
I wouldn't say these authors have been influenced by Shakespeare, nor that they make reference to his works in the book, that I can tell anyways, although maybe I missed some or im otherwise not remembering them.
I have other Pratchett books but its good bet I wont be reading another one in the future. I also have a gaiman book, stardust, which was made into a movie, that I sorta enjoyed, id be willing to give that a chance.
right now the authors are going on about witches and newton pulsifier (why the bizarre names I wonder?) is on his way to investigate some strange phenomenon that may be associated with them.
haven't looked into news about the fire up north but the sky here today is seemingly normal. a few days ago the sunset looked like something out of krypton.
I wasn't thinking of your novel, when I suggested Shakespeare. I remember so little about the story. I think its main references are the Bible, specially Genesis and all these legends about fallen devils.
Sorry that the book isn't more entertaining.
I saw the sky of NY in the news. A yellow kind of smoke that looked terrible. And you are affected by a fire in Canada.
well you lost me on references danik, but that's okay.
yes, the fall of man, and some of the angels serve as the premise for the story.
you probably saw new York city? I think it was worse there than anywhere else in the state. its hard to know if the temperatures we're experiencing are on the lower verges of normal or if they have been heavily affected by the smoke. this last week the thermometer on my porch in the mornings was registering temperatures not many degrees above freezing.
in the reading last night newton crosses paths with a flying saucer manned by toad-like creatures that accost him about the buildup of acid rain.
maybe its a not too subtle jab at mankind needing to be more environmentally minded but as you go along reading, youre like "what the heck?"
Sorry!
Yes, they showed New York City. I think not many people here, unless thei´ve been there, associate New York with the rural part of the state. But it looked terrible, like something, as you said, out of Science Fiction.
The thermometers have been running crazy here too. A mild winter would be ok but the summer probably will be specially hot, we will be able to fry eggs on the pavement, with El Niño in Charge of temperatures.
Science Fiction kind of scares me, specially if there is a risk of it becoming true as in the case of pandemics.
you might enjoy the author robin cook danik.
i recently watched alita, battle angel and loved it. the main character, alita, and many of the other characters, are cyborgs.
and i'll probably re-watch ready, player one sometime, much of the movie takes place in a virtual reality.
last nights reading was interesting, newton the witch hunter and anathema a witch are together and talking about agnes nutter's book of prophecy. somehow this has got to be tied to adam and Armageddon.
I´ll take a look, Bounty, thanks!
ive enjoyed every robin cook book ive ever read.
the books picked up a little bit (though im cynically thinking it wont last).
since warlock isn't the anti-Christ, some of the upper demons are kinda hacked off at Crowley and a couple of them were sent to retrieve him so he can be tortured for his failure. he was able to kill one of them with a holy water trap, and right now he's being chased, through the phone lines, by the other one.
Just looked Cook up, the inventor of the medical thriller. Never read him, but i think his books became famous here too, specially Coma.
Seems Good Omens has improved or you got used to it.
coma was one of the first biggies danik---been lots of others.
I recently watched a movie I can recommend to you---creepy scary along the lines of what you mentioned earlier [I[the invasion[/I] with Nicole Kidman and Daniel craig.
nah, just occasional interesting parts---hit and miss, the near ending was kinda like that when all the characters ended up at the same place at the same time and amargeddon didn't happen. I finished the book, glad to be done with it, wont read another Pratchett!
Man-o-man, I’ve been posting over on the McCarthy obituary thread in General Chat, and Christ is it slow. Reminds me of my old Commodore 64 computer where I’d boot it up, feed a floppy into it, and go mow the grass or something while waiting for the program to load.
Read Coma a while back. Liked it. Has anyone mentioned Douglas Adam’s books yet?
its been a little while since ive peeked through the thread. I have a vague memory of someone maybe mentioning hitch-hikers guide but I remember reading that years ago and I can still confidently say (we talked about him before)---Patrick McManus is the funniest author!
Hell yeah. That guy cracks me up.
Here’s one: Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
Made me laugh out loud, which can be concerning to people around me when I’m sitting by myself reading in a quiet room at the library.
I´m not so fond of creepy and scary movies, Bounty!
Congrats that you finished "Good Omens" even not liking it much. What is coming next?
its all very consistent danik with your quote "Science Fiction kind of scares me, specially if there is a risk of it becoming true as in the case of pandemics."
but in so much as the purpose of art being commentary on the human condition, the movies a good one.
thank you. that's a good question. for the past few days ive just been in my elvis Presley biography and it feels a bit weird to not also be reading a fiction book. so I want to find something soon, not scarlett yet.
often in cases like this, until an inspiration comes along, i'll just default to a small western, or a star trek book...