kjellika commenting on some 2009 reading

I'll comment now and then.

I did like Coriolanus by William Shakespeare. 4 out of 5 stars.

Looking forward to reading The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen.

Just finished an old play (Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg) by the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner (1903) Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910). Quite uninteresting (especially if you aren't Norwegian).

Reading (slowly) Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin for the LT group 'Project 1929'. Curious style which confuses me a bit for the time being. Interesting, all the same.

Hey kjellika, a familar face from Group Reads! I'm looking forward to following your thread because I found Undset last year because of your recommendation and I'm looking for some more new authors this year.

Happy New Year!

#2
Thanks, and Happy New Year to you!

Well, I'm going to read 50 plays this year (one of my new challenges) along with other books (mostly novels and non-fiction), so I might find some "new" authors.
My only suggestion for the time being is the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906).

I've actually got some Ibsen that I inherited from my Dad's library ... haven't read any yet so I'll have to give it a try.

Oh, I do so love Coriolanus with all the blood and body parts that gradually collect onstage by the end of the play. There's nothing like a good Elizabethan revenge tragedy to start the day off right ;-)

As for plays, if you're not limiting yourself to the classics, read David Hwang's M. Butterfly (not to be confused with Madame Butterfly). Tom Stoppard is also amusing. You might consider reading his Travesties and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest together. I recommend Aristophanes's Lysistrata. It's a hoot. Just make sure you get a good translation. A lot of the Restoration comedies are funny. if you want some women in the mix, try Aphra Behn's The Rover. Other comedies from the Restoration and 18th-century include The Way of the World and She Stoops to Conquer. An interesting and funny American comedy from the same period is The Contrast by Royall Tyler. Wit by Margaret Edson (late 20th century I think) is heartbreaking but worth reading. August Wilson is another good playwright to read. I could provide you with a list of several hundred and brief synopses of all, so I will stop here before I bore everyone past the point of tears and on to wrist slitting. Oh and don't leave out Susan Glaspell's Trifles. It was done as a short story and a play, so if you decide on that one, make sure you've got the drama version. I really am stopping now.

Coriolanus must read better than it performs. I saw a production at the Globe a couple of years ago, and I can't say it was one of my Shakespearean favorites...seemed to just go on and on. But I do love Ibsen -- The Master Builder is absolutely fascinating.

Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a must as a Shakespeare follow-up and will lighten the mood of Ibsen.

And I forgot to add Brecht. Brecht is a must read. And John Gay's The Beggar's Opera along with Brecht's reworking of it.

How wonderful someone's reading plays! When I read Will in the World, which didn't grab me much, my chief enjoyment was chasing down lines from the plays and then ending up reading the complete act or even entire play that Greenblatt was talking about.

I've never seen a production of MacbethI thought was very good, because nothing has ever matched how I've staged it all in my head. Polanski's movie version is dreadful.

"Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" never made any sense to me until I saw it on TV (Tim Roth played one of the parts).

Last year I read Mother Courage and Her Children by Brecht and liked it.

And don't miss Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. A lot scarier than the Liz and Dick movie version, as good as that is.

#5,7,8,9
Thanks for your suggestions.
I hope to find some of these plays at the local library. They've got a room with literature in different foreign languages (a lot in English). I'll surely search there for some plays I'd like to read.

I bought three plays in English some days ago:
Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.

I haven't heard of the last one, but I look forward to reading those plays soon.
Does any of you know what kind of a play A Raisin in the Sun is? Tragedy? Comedy? Modern, etc. etc??

You're in for a treat with "Raisin." It's a drama about a black family trying to integrate into a white neighborhood in the early days of the civil rights movement.

Brecht is one of my favourites. If you can find a translation in Norwegian, I recommend both Luigi Pirandello and Carlo Goldoni, two among the greatest Italian playwrights, the first of whom was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. Goldoni was Venetian, and lived in the 18th century. His plays are extremely entertaining and colourful.

kjellika--Raisin in the Sun is terrific. The story of the playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, is really interesting, too. I know there is a group trying to pull together money for a documentary on her life and there's a radio script that uses excerpts form her work and various interviews that's really good, called To Be Young, Gifted and Black. This is probably more than you wanted to know! But I've been intrigued by her for sometime. Her last play, (on Broadway in 1964, I think. She died from caner after it opened.) The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window is decidedly overwritten, but achingly heartfelt. Okay, enough from me!

I must second Paola's recommendation of Pirandello. Six Characters in Search of an Author is masterful. My favorite 20th century playwright is Beckett. Everything he wrote is wonderful, but the best is Waiting for Godot.

Lots of great suggestions here. To the Restoration Comedy list that Urania started, I'd add The Man of Mode. I too am a Beckett fan, though I'm more partial to Endgame. than to Godot.

I'm overwhelmed. Thank you.

I'd love to read Brecht, Beckett and other plays you mention, but I'll have to read some from my TBR pile too (and some rereads), and maybe I'll read more than 50 plays in 2009. Some of the plays (especially the modern ones, I imagine) are quite brief, you know.

Very interesting reading, so far.
I think the next play to read (after The Master Builder) will be Medea by Euripides. And then a "new" Shakespeare. And THEN it might be A Raisin in the Sun ???

I plan to read the plays in this way:
1. Shakespeare
2. Some other play
3. Ibsen
4. Some other play
5. Shakespeare
6. Some other play
7. Ibsen
8. Some other play
9.
---------------
---------------

AND SO ON. I might leave this plan now and then, though.

Just finished The Master Builder (Byggmester Solness) by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906).

I think this play is one of Ibsen's masterpieces, about Solness (not an architect, but a master builder) who is afraid of heights. Very intersting characters and Ibsen uses his well known retrospective method teaching us what has happened years ago. Exciting, indeed.

Some main characters: Halvard Solness, Mrs. Aline Solness, Hilde Wangel, Kaja Fosli, Knut Brovik.

You should definitely read the Oresteia by Aeschylus. It is a brilliant dramatic trilogy.

Hello Mary,

thank you for your suggestion.
Later this year I'll try to find it at the local library here in Bodø.
I've surely heard of this trilogy and read about it in my History of Literature. It seems to be very interesting, and if it is "brilliant dramatic" as well, I hope to be able to read it quite soon.

Kjell :)

I particularly like the Oresteia for its meditation on the nature of guilt, justice, and law. One has to read the entire trilogy to see the entire debate play out. It is also useful to know a little about the historical context in classical Greece when it was written. Apart from Lysistrata, it is one of the few Greek dramas in which I have been able to get my students thoroughly enthused and debating vociferiously about the nature of the Law.

Hi Kjellika and Urania1,

Kjelika, I suggested The Oresteia for the next group reads-literature (though I'd be fin with whatever is chosen), but would second Urania in recommending that you read it, group or no group. Urania1, are your students ever engaged by Antigone? The issues in that play, sadly, always remain relevant.

I'm really going to enjoy your plays thread this year Kjellika! It's a great idea. I may have to reread all of Ibsen with you!

Alas theaelizabeth, I no longer teach. Yes students do like Antigone, but for some reason they really get excited about the Oresteia. Sadly, much of it is relevant as well.

Alas, alas, thrice alas.

My own university experience (at a university priding itself on excellence just slightly below the Ivy League) is that at least half the profs were deadwood, with little or no teaching ability or interest. That impression is being reinforced now when my children are going through, again at supposedly first-rate universities. And then first-rate teachers, keen and enthusiastic, do not get tenure or get shot down by university politics. Grad students do the bulk of the real work and get treated abominably, and then find it impossible to get into tenure-track jobs. Sometime, no frequently, the state of the universities is truly despair-provoking.

#23 - one of the great advantages (in the US) of going to a good, small liberal arts college. While most are unreasonably expensive, there are some that are either state schools (unc-asheville, nc; W&Mary, va) or not - relatively speaking - horribly overpriced (warren wilson, Guilford, nc); or if horribly expensive...are v. generous w/ aid (Grinnell, Macalester). i know if i were picking an undergrad school in NCarolina i'd pick UNC-Asheville > Chapel Hill today. 30 yrs ago it would've been different. Then there are the 2 St John's "Great Books" campuses where i was v. pleased that my nephew is finishing up:
http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/SFreadlist.shtml it's been fun to follow what Patrick's been reading..since the schedule, if not invariant, is very, very structured.

Pat's been v. pleased w/ St Johns and our son really enjoyed Macalester.

#24, I taught at a supposedly good, small liberal arts college. I was outed for being too liberal; or to be more accurate after 20 years of teaching, I was simply too tired to put up with the petty meanness on the part of administration and the rule by fear, intimidation, and humiliation of anyone who was in the least bit different. So I resigned. I gave a year's notice and had a wonderful time saying exactly what I thought. And they thought I was liberal before ;-) I desperately miss teaching, but apart from adjunct teaching (abominable exploitation), there is no future for profs, who have worked at teaching colleges and walked away from tenure-track positions. I've given my pound of flesh and then some.

I studied the Orestia this past fall, and I didn't initially like it, but it really grew on me. As Urania says, it helps to know some of the historical context. It's worth reading though because the issues are still interesting and relevant. And Clytemnestra is just such an interesting character.

I've ordered a Norwegian paperback edition containing 7 greek dramas, among them the trilogy Oresteia.

I'm now reading Medea by Euripides. It is a Norwegian version belonging to The Norwegian Bookclub's series 'The World Library'. It has got lots of end notes and a rather long intoductory essay by the contemporary Norwegian author Jan Kjaerstad. Exciting!

#21 theaelizabet

I guess I'll not read all of Ibsen this year, but we may discuss his plays if you are going to reread some of them. Do you have any favorites?

#27 - I'm now reading Medea by Euripides.

----------------

Euripides rocks! He's my favourite of the Greeks. I hope you like him too.

Medea rocks. Did you know that her famous speech about the wrongs done to woman was taken as a rallying cry by the Brittish suffragettes?

#25 and adam felt like a conservative* at macalester; You weren't at Carleton by any chance?? or Davidson?

*he's not, particularly.

#30 I was at Maryville College.

#24, I'm thrilled to see your opinion that you'd choose UNC-Asheville over UNC Chapel Hill. I agree for 2 reasons: First, I taught for a year as a visiting professor at UNCA and thoroughly enjoyed it (though I was able to stay out of the politics that were undoubtedly present); and second, I went to Duke :-)

#20, I agree that Lysistrata can provoke some great discussions. I never taught the Oresteia, but I can see how students would find plenty to discuss.

#22--"...but for some reason they really get excited about the Oresteia. Sadly, much of it is relevant as well."

Ain't it the truth.

#28
Yes, I liked Medea.
Maybe I'll read Hippolytos later this year.

I'll soon start reading Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

I was at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1979-83. I received an excellent undergraduate education there. Of course, I avoided large classes. Every semester, I would go to the campus bookstore and see how many books each professor had ordered for his next semester's classes. I picked those profs. They worked their students harder than the professors teaching large section, but anyone who wanted to teach twelve hefty primary texts on political science cared about his or her topic. I knew these classes would be exciting and they always were. I do not know what it's like these days. I do know Asheville (the city) is wonderful.

Finished Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare today.
This is the playwright's first tragedy, and it is a rather gory story from old Rome.
Lots of disgusting characters, especially queen Tamora and her lover Aaron.
Too much violence, murdering, rape and mutilation, IMO, but a page-turner. Yes, indeed.
A macabre tragedy, with a happy ending for the title character's son Lucius.

See the movie version of Titus Andronicus directed by Julie Tamor and starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. It is a brilliant commentary on present day warfare. Stylistically it incorporates a modern noire/military look with a stylized "Roman" empire and the barbarians look. It is terrible, but also terribly gorgeous and beautiful.

Kjellika, your play reading thread is very interesting. In addition to all the recommendations made above, I would add the plays of Noel Coward, especially Blithe Spirit, Private Lives and Design for Living.

Also, to add to Urania's list of Restoration Comedies, don't forget Richard Brinsley Sheridan (a most euphonious name that needs to be loudly and grandly declaimed with rolling 'r's). Very witty and outrageous stuff. (sorry, no touchstone)

Just finished A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.

A lovely and great drama. I really loved the plot, and the characters are very exciting and very interesting, containing and expressing most of human emotions and behaviour.
MAMA is marvellous!!

One (among many others) excerpts I enjoyed:

(ACT II, Scene two)

(Mrs.) JOHNSON (...) Well - I always thinks like Booker T. Washington said that time - "Education has spoiled many a good plow hand"-

MAMA Is that what old Booker T. said?

JOHNSON He sure did.

MAMA Well, it sounds just like him. The fool.

JOHNSON (Indignantly) Well - he was one of our great men.

MAMA Who said so?

Wha an interesting project kjellika! I'm reading Julius Caesar for the first time and am watching the 1953 film with (a thin!) Marlon Brando as Mark Antony, James Mason as Brutus, John Gielgud as Cassius and Deborah Kerr as Portia with music by Miklós Rózsa - highly recommended! So now I'll definitely look up your Titus Andronicus film - thanks urania1!

There is also a wonderful film version of A Raisin in the Sun (1961) starring Sidney Poitier.

Currently reading:
The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen. A reread, as before: excellent!
My Antonia by Willa Cather. Exciting. Beatifully written.
Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A reread. Interesting. His first novel, but not among his best known, I think.

Finished The Wild Duck.
What a marvellous play. It is my all time favorite of Ibsen's plays.
So many interesting characters.
Poor Hedvik and her father Hjalmar Ekdal and her grandfather old Ekdal. And Gina, Hjalmar's wife.
I like Dr. Relling, but I dislike Gregers Werle and his father.
The main quote (from Relling):
"If you take the lies of life from an ordinary man, you take his happiness from him as well" (my translation).

Poor Folk is an epistolary novel, and it'll be interesting to read the rest of it, especially since I studied this kind of novels two or three years ago. The title of the course was "18th century's epistolary novel and the development of the modern novel". I read then Heroides by Ovid, Pamela by Samuel Richardson, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers by Goethe, Julie, or the new Heloise by Rousseau, etc.

I read Poor Folk last year. It is funny and sad at the same time. It is also completely over the top. And to think that Belinsky liked that novel but broke with D. over his next work: The Double. I just finished Netochka Nezvanova, D.'s unfinished novel. I've been trying to decide how he would have proceeded had he finished the work.

The year-long author (2009) of the LT group 'Author Theme Reads'
(http://www.librarything.com/groups/authorthemereads#forums) is Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I know. I belong to a private LT group that is covering D. or Dodo as we call him and all things Dodo: influences, Russian culture, criticism, biographies, the entire 19th-century Russian canon. I also direct a real (as opposed to virtual) group that just completed a two and a half year trek through Proust. We're now on to Dodo's complete works. I haven't spent much time on the Author Theme reads for fear of becoming too repetitive.

How exciting!
I'm halfway through In Search of Lost Time, a Norwegian edition in 7 paperback volumes. Currently reading volume IV: Sodome and Gomorrah.

I found Pamela very hard to get into, but I've enjoyed other epistolary novels (particularly Les Liaisons Dangereuses). I've heard good things about Julie, or the New Heloise; what did you think of it? Anyone ever tried Richardson's Clarissa? Books that are that long sometimes scare me off ...

Les Liaisons Dangereuses was part of the course mentioned in #44.
Pamela was one of the novels I liked the best (straight forward reading), on the contrary 'Julie' was a little boring, maybe because it is too long, IMO.
I haven't tried Clarissa. One reason why it wasn't part of the course was that the novel is too long (could make a course alone, as the teacher said), and maybe it is too long to be ever read by me. I guess so. LOTS of other books on my TBR pile!!

fyi, I've left The Author Theme Group to concentrate on Monthly Author Read (February: Willa Cather). And I'll read more by/about Knut Hamsun since it's 150 years since he was born (August 4th 1859), and there is much about him in Norwegian media etc.
Also hoping to participate in the reading of the next book in "Group Reads - Literature".

I finished Pygmalion today, and I think it's a very humorous and great play. I loved the characters (esp. Eliza Doolittle) and the plot, but I wonder why Shaw wrote several pages to tell us what happened to the persons after the ending of the play (performance).... (??)

>51 kjellika: kjellika,

How interesting you should mention Knut Hamsun. I have had his book Pan on my wishlist for a long time. Yesterday, I discovered a translation online. I am quite excited - the more so since I am getting a Kindle. My personal MT. TBR will then look smaller than it actually is ;-)

>52 urania1: urania1

Pan is very often regarded as Hamsun's masterpiece, and the novel is described as a "prose-lyrical" (is that a correct English phrase?) book, where the chapters are poems (very often about love and nature).
I hope the translation follows the original text carefully. The Hamsunian style in Pan is VERY typical.
(Do you have a link to the online translation?)

>53 kjellika: kjellika

Here's the link to the online version of Pan. The translation is an old one by W. W. Worster and first printed in 1921.

P.S. Let me know how faithful you think the translation is. You'll have to scroll down. There's a lot of introductory material at the beginning.

> Thank you, urania1.
I'll compare some of the e-text to my Norwegian edition of 'Pan', and hopefully I can tell you later what I think of the translation.

(going to favorite the link now)

Katharina was a shrew, but she was tamed by Petruchio. I don't think nowadays women (and men, I hope) will agree with Katharina in her final lines, or?
The Taming of the Shrew is a real comedy, with intrigues, disguises, comic characters with comic lines etc. And it ends well.
I do think Petruchio was too harsh and evil, and Katherina was too much oppressed by him. She was a shrew all right, but....

I haven't got time to compare the English and the Norwegian versions of Pan yet, alas. Some day I will. Promise (especially to myself).

>56 kjellika: kjellika, I have seen The Taming of the Shrew performed as both a comedy and a tragedy. A off-Broadway production, which I did not see but read about in a drama journal, presented a particularly grim version of the play. In it, Katharina was reduced to the position of indoctrinated and brainwashed prisoner. Think Patricia Hearst. Being deprived of food, drink, and sleep, tortured and then treated intermittently with a bit of kindness is a fairly typical method of brainwashing. In the particular section which I reference, Petruchio rapes Katharina on the dining table while he denies her all of the above. Apparently, the performance was rather graphic. By the end, Katharina had become a mindless Stepford wife, blankly reciting her lines. Hardly pleasant is it?

The ending does present a problem for directors who produce this play as a comedy (and most still do). The best handling of the ending I have seen was one that presented Katharina and Petruchio as co-conspirators. Right after Petruchio collects the bag of money from the astounded men, he winks at Katharina and behind his back, out of sight from the other men, he tosses the money bag to Katharina. The suggestion, of course, is that they cooked up the plan much earlier - a handy way for assuaging a modern audience.

It is interesting to look at Petruchio's references to taming hawks and women. If one looks at hawking manuals of the period, he follows the advice almost word for word in his taming of Katharina. An interesting metaphor, no. I could comment for twenty pages, but I will stop here.

It's interesting how far contemporary directors will go to make a troublesome play like this "palatable" to modern audiences. You see the same thing with The Merchant of Venice which most often is now performed as "The Tragedy of Shylock" with an extra act thrown in. I'm a bit of a purist, but I have enjoyed a couple of workshop performances where the actors tried to portray these plays "straight." The comedy is very uncomfortable in such situations, but I think that works pretty well with these two plays.

I am not addicted to purism although I think it has a place (among many possible places). I would like to see one of Shakespeare's comedies performed as these plays originally were performed - with an all-male cast . I think seeing an all-male production might highlight some elements of the plays that one misses by thinking about the characters along traditional gender lines. I have yet to meet a "purist" director who has pursued purism to this extent.

Kjell, Mary - About 7-8 years ago, I saw Twelfth Night done by an all-male cast. It was a traveling show that came to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. With Twelfth Night's plot including women posing as men and people falling in love, the all-male cast already highlights issues of gender. The director went all-out on the comedy, playing it broad and ribald. Combining the play's mixed gender roles with an all-male cast, it was often hilarious. We sat next to a family of teenage boys. Before the play started I wondered if they were even going to understand the play, let alone like it, but it seemed that they really enjoyed themselves.

'Nokon kjem til å komme' (someone will arrive (my translation)) is a modern Norwegian play by the playwright Jon Fosse, and I just read it from the collection Teaterstykke 1 (Plays 1).
Characters: SHE, HE, and THE MAN
SHE and HE have bought a house and will live by themselves and for each other. But someone will arrive and he does. SHE falls in love with THE MAN (I guess) and HE becomes jealous. An open ending that makes you think....

Looking forward to reading The Forsyte Saga with 'Group Reads - Literature'.

Finished "Hit - men ikke lenger" by Cecilie Bjørnstad. She made her debut as an author with this collection of short stories, and the collection is VERY promising, so now I'm looking forward to her first novel.

A quite difficult title to translate. In English it MIGHT be: "Here - but not any further" (????)

Another Ibsen drama finished:
'Lille Eyolf' (Little Eyolf).

Well, I think this play isn't easy to interpret.
I assume it's about guilt and remorse, and the most curious character is The rat virgin ('Rottejomfruen' in Norwegian). She might be Ibsen's spokes(wo)man in 'Little Eyolf'.
The turning point in the play is at the end of act I, and act II and III tell us how Eyolf's parents (and Asta Almers) behave and think after the tragedy. And Ibsen uses his retrospective technique rather often in this play.
A family tragedy.
A symbolic play.
I'm not sure if Little Eyolf has a "happy ending". It makes you think, all right ..............

Hi there! 50 plays, what a terrific goal.

You've made me want to reread Euripides' Medea. (I also liked The Bacchae.)

And may I second the earlier recommendation of Wit by Margaret Edson? It's really impressive, and a film adaptation starring Emma Thompson makes me choke up every time, if you ever want a good weepy movie.

I'd also add recommendations of Amelie Nothomb's Human Rites (or Les Combustibles in French) and Yasmina Reza's Art by Yasmina Reza.

ETA: I'm having trouble getting my touchstones to work, sorry... :(

> 64, Fullmoonblue

Thanks for your recommendations.

From now on I'll comment on my "play reading" at the 50 Book Challenge thread:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/54114

This thread I'll use to comment on my other reads.

CHALLENGE:
A new attempt (my fourth) on reading Ulysses !!!!!

If you are having trouble with Ulysses, you might consider reading it with a reading companion. The Bloomsday Book is a useful guide that I'm familiar with, but there are others as well.

Thanks wrmjr66,

I'll try to find The Bloomsday Book in a Norwegian internet book store. There might exist a Norwegian version of it??

Finished The Man of Property and I'm now reading an interlude and then In Chancery. I think Galsworthy is a genius describing his characters, but there ain't many of his persons I really like.
My favorite so far is Old Jolyon.
And I'm still reading In Search of Lost Time (7 volumes in Norwegian), in three days I'll start on volume 5.
Still waiting for The Bloomsday Book to arrive, and I AM going to read Ulysses when I've finished 'ISOLT' about July-August this year.
#66 is NOT a joke!! Just postponing (he-he). One excuse: I must have The Bloomsday Book !!!

Hi Kjellika - I've just got going with Ulysses myself and the Bloomsdy Book is very helpful!

Hi Kjellika and Pummzie,

Have fun with Ulysses. When you finish, I triple dog dare you (an American expression) to read Finnigans Wake.

Thanks urania1

I finished volume 4 of my Norwegian edition of In Search of Lost Time today.
3 more volumes left (~1100 pages).
I hope I'll be able to write some comments (review) when I finish the whole novel in about four months.
Ohh, so many names, so many characters and places. But I still understand "the story" (plot) It's rather boring now and then, and quite difficult to concentrate, but as I'm reading SLOWLY, I've got time to reread some pages.

Wow - good for you Kjellika. I think I will save Proust for next year... I'll be interested to see what you make of it when you're done.

And as for Finnegan's Wake, let's wait and see if we make it to the end of Ulysses first! I've been told that the Wandering Rocks chapter is a particular delight...

Finished "Ny jord" (Shallow Soil) by Knut Hamsun yesterday. It was published in 1893 and is one of Hamsun's less known novels. But I liked it as I reread it now. An interesting story about business men, authors, painters, and Hamsun supports the business men against the artists, and the teacher Coldevin seems to be the author's spokesman.

My next Hamsun read is Pan (cf. ## 51, 52, 53, 54, 55).

I finished Harens år (The Year of the Hare) yesterday, and it was what I expected, a humorous story about Vatanen and his hare. Vatanen leaves civilization and spend his time in the Finnish forests with the hare. Many curious and incredible situations that made me laugh out loud OFTEN !!
Recommended! It deserves four stars, I think (not 5 because it ain't one of the BEST novels I've read).

hmm, that sounds v interesting. I'll check it out.

btw, I know you're working your way through a mountain of plays this year so a little recommendation for you:
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig. i loved it.

>76 Pummzie:, Pummzie

Kiss of the Spider Woman seems familiar, but I haven't heard of the author/playwright. I'll check out if it's availale in Norwegian/English at the local library or in an internet book shop.

I'll try to write some brief reviews of the first four volumes of In Search of Lost Time (which I've read during the last 8-9 months, I'm now reading volume 5 (out of seven)). It might take some time to put them here. I took some notes while reading, and I remember quite well what the volumes are about (mostly), much because I read them rather slowly. Writing reviews will be a fine repetition, I assume .............

>75 kjellika: At last! Someone else who has read The Year of the Hare. I could not stop laughing as I read this book. I adore it!

>78 urania1:
Have you read other novels by Arto Paasilinna? The Year of the Hare was my first read by this author. Fortunately I own one more paperback which I'm going to read when I've finished the books I'm currently reading. I assume. The Norwegian title is Den ulende mølleren and the English one is The Howling Miller.
A promising and humorous(?) title. Something to look forward to!

cf. # 72

I took some notes as I read In Search of Lost Time (vol. 1-4), and I still take notes reading the rest of the volumes (5-7).

I'll try to write some reviews now and then using my notes and my memory.

Volume I:
Swann's Way:

The first part is titled "Combray". Memories of the narrator's childhood. His mother didn't come to his room to kiss him goodnight. The flavour of a Madeleine cake dipped in tea.
The two ways: Swann's way and the Guermantes way are incompatible worlds.
The narrator's first glimpse of Gilberte Swann, a scene of lesbian love and sadism nearby Montjovain.
Characters playing important roles in the rest of the novel: Swann (most important), the Duchesse de Guermantes, the baron de Charlus and Bloch.

The second part, "Swann in Love" goes back fifteen years and is the story of Swann's destructive passion for Odette de Crecy. It is told in detail by a third-person narrator. The different stages of Swann's infatuation are recounted: 1) Initial crystallisation of love, 2) the torments of jealousy, 3) eventual indifference.

The third part, "Place-names: the Name", sub-divides into three sections: 1) the narrator's dreams about places, he desires to travel, 2) games with Gilberte Swann at the Champs Elysees, 3) the Bois de Boulogne in winter, changing mores and fashions, symbol of vanishing time. A lyrical evocation.

>79 kjellika: kjellika,

I have not read any other Paasilinna novels. I must check for more.

## 51-55

urania1
I've just started (at last) rereading Pan and I've compared chapter I of my Norwegian edition with the on-line English version. The translation seems to be quite faithful so far, but there are some discrepansies (maybe misprints) here and there, though.
I'll continue comparing some chapters (e.g. when Hamsun is very "Hamsunian" or/and the Norwegian is very Norwegian) as I read along. I assume that the English text will follow the Norwegian one rather carefully throughout the novel. We'll see.

One place name is mentioned:
'Girilund', it should be 'Sirilund' (probably a misprint). Sirilund is an important place (the main place, I think) in 'Pan'.

Thanks kjellika. I'll be loking forwrd to hearing your assessment.

Yes, 'Girilund' IS a misprint. 'Sirilund' is mentioned (in the English on-line version) in one of the next chapters.

Now and then I'm reading two books ABOUT Hamsun:
Livsklättraren by Sigrid Combuchen (in Swedish)
and a periodical (Agora) from 1999 (more than 400 pages) about some of his novels and other writings.
Intersting. Both of them.

And soon I'll read a new book about books and literature:
Med litteraturen gjennom livet ('My life with literature - an autobiography') by Rolf Nyboe Nettum.
I'm really looking forward to this one. Nyboe Nettum says he has "suffered" from a 'Hamsunian fever' (I can imagine what it is) all his life.............

Finished Alberte-serien yesterday.
A Norwegian classic trilogy about Alberte, and her childhood in Tromsø (Northern Norway, in the first novel, Alberte og Jakob (1926)). In the next two novels - 'Alberte og friheten' (1931)and 'Bare Alberte' (1939) - she lives in Paris trying to become a novelist. At the end of the trilogy she is in Norway finishing her novel. I'm not sure if she gets it published...............
My rating: 3.5 stars

Finished volume 1 of The Forsyte Saga. I liked it. I liked and disliked the persons. I loved the plot. It was a light read. Something happened all the time.

hi, kjellika. I have not read a lot of plays - some Greek from Humanities at college long ago - I remember liking the Birds by Aristophanes - and I have read A raisin in the sun, which is very good. But your discussion makes me want to get started. First I will have to catch up with what I have checked out of the library.

Finished volume 5 of In Search of Lost Time (The Prisoner). Two volumes (720 pages) left to read. I assume I'll manage finishing the whole ISOLT ultimo July. The Norwegian title of vol. VI is 'Uten Albertine'. I'm not sure what's the English title, but if you translate it, it should be ~Without Albertine(?)
In volume V the narrator (Marcel?) is VERY jealous, and I think he likes and worships this jealousy. 'The prisoner' is NOT the best volume of ISOLT, imo.

#88, solla

I've finished two parts of The Oresteia: 'Agamemnon' and 'The Libation Bearers'. Excellent Greek tragedies.
Recommended!
Maybe you've already read them?

I'm now going to read the last part The Eumenides, and I'm really looking forward to it.

The Oresteia is great. The Libation Bearers is the best part of it, imo. Dramatic, interesting, challenging. Too much chorus some places (e.g. at the end of part III)

I'm still In Search of Lost Time, hoping to regain it in 44 days (July 20th)

From volume VI of ISOLT:
"Optimism is the philosophy of the past."

Death of a Salesman was less great than I expected.

imho, Arthur Miller is overrated -- especially Death of a Salesman -- it may have had resonance in the 1950s, but it's really dated today. I think The Crucible is the best of his plays. However, his contemporary, Tennessee Williams is a much better writer.

#90 kjellika, I know that I did read them, but I will have to read again. I remember plot, but not language. Actually, I remember the Eumenides better, because probably that is what we discussed most, about Athena and Mother Right - vs. law. I won't say more in case you haven't read yet.

Still reading Pan. I'll finish it very soon. Then I'm going to read Victoria.
These two novels make volume 4 of NYE HAMSUN SAMLEDE (The New Complete Hamsun, 27 volumes), so I still have 23 volumes left. And I'm going to read (mostly reread) them during 2009 and the following year(s). + some books ABOUT Hamsun and his works.
Hoping to read some other books/authors (fiction/non-fiction) as well

Kjellka, re 86, your comments reminded me for the first time in ages of a childhood friend whose family came from Tromsø to the US for a year when we were five. I've never read anything about or set in that part of Norway, and now suddenly I'm curious. Thanks for reminding me!

I've just read The House with the Blind Glass Windows and a while back I read Dina's Book, both by Norwegian author Herbjorg Wassmo. I liked both, but Dina's Book was the better book of the two. I've never been to Norway (I'd like to go someday), but I felt like both books had a great sense of setting.

I know Wassmo won the Nordic Prize, and that The House With the Blind Glass Windows is on the 1001 books list.

I was wondering how Wassmo is viewed in Norway, kjellika?

When I was a child, I read the "Inger Johanne" books. they were translated into English & were very funny.
That aroused my interest in Norway which was invaded about that time. In school we were trying to keep up with current events & had to do reports on people or places in the news, we could choose our own, so I did my report on Norway.

## 97, 98,99
Thank you for your comments. I guess foreign countries/places/people are quite exotic to most people. Speaking from my own experiences.
There are very much mountains and fiords in Norway, you know, especially in the West and the North (where I live), so it might differ from your places.
The world is exciting, both the real world and the literary one.

>98 arubabookwoman:, arubabookwoman,
Herbjørg Wassmo is much appreciated and read in Norway. She hasn't written much lately, I imagine, but her previous books are still very popular here. She is considered as one of the Norwegian modern classics, but I haven't read more of her than half through Dina's Book some years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't finish it. Maybe I should try again??

>99 MarianV:, MarianV
I HAVE heard of the "Inger Johanne" books, but I haven't seen or read any of them. I guess they were mostly written for girls, so...
Do you know who wrote the "Inger Johanne" books (and when)?

>100 kjellika: kjellika,

I couldn't get through Dina's Book either. I broke down and got a recent translation of Pan because I read that the translator of the free version (online) severely edited the book.

Hi Kjellica.

I was finally able to get To Siberia by Per Petterson after having it on hold at the library for months. I am still absorbing it, but it is very good. His writing from the point of view of a girl/woman is pretty convincing. I am trying to use it as a model for setting up scenes that can range over years. Out Stealing Horses ranged over years too, but, as I recall - having had to return the book - it was centered mostly in the time period when he was older, and the summer with his friend. In the very first chapter in To Siberia he goes from describing a wagon ride down the road from her grandfather's house, to walking along it two years later with her father. Though the narrator sometimes refers to herself as old, she doesn't relate any of her life of the present. The novel ends when she is 23. Still, having that frame of writing about the past does give him the ability to say, "That summer I was fourteen and a half..". I can't use that device because I am trying to stay in the time and voice of the child, but still I think it will be helpful.

I'll soon continue commenting on some of the books I read.

I'm currently reading the last volume (volume VII, in Norwegian) of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I started at vol. I in July 2008.

Alack,

To Siberia is not yet out in the US nor available on Kindle.

I checked out a copy from Multnomah County Library in Portland, OR Graywolf Press (in St. Paul, Minnesota), 2008. They even have a large print edition, Waterville : Kennebec Large Print, 2009. Amazon has it, or their vendors do, even some paperback for 8.95 plus $3. shipping and handling. Not on Kindle though.

I think our library is exceptionally good.