Music Banter - What are you reading right now?

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Bottom Line : don't read historical novels. Make the effort and read something less artificial.

War and Peace

Black Rain (Ibuse)

Narcissus and Goldmund

The Confessions of Nat Turner

I mean damn we could rattle off books all day. The past is half of everything and it is everything that’s ever happened. Reading straight history is great but historical fiction can also open your mind up to what it may have been.

Also, all history is in the ether. As soon as the moment passes the mythologizing begins. Our understanding will always morph and be blurred by presentism. By reading the classics of historical fiction you’re lending your mind to the dream that is history as we understand it.

We’re talking about the experiences of every person that ever lived. I’m not saying it’s not crucially important to differentiate how we process writings about history but it’s all fiction to some degree. It’s our personal responsibility to be critical but also open because truthfully we don’t know what the **** happened.

^ There are plenty of good historical novels I'm sure, but I suppose I was focusing on some modern novels that reach back furthur than they are convincingly able to convey. The Sarum book has a pic of Stonehenge on the cover, so perhaps unfairly, I imagined that it might feature dialogue that is in this kind of style:"Woman, fetch me my sheepskin that I may worship at the Henge which is of stone."

One tip for aspiring authors is "Write about what you know", and in the case of Tolstoy, he might have considered that when starting War And Peace:-

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The novel is set 60 years before Tolstoy's day, but he had spoken with people who lived through the 1812 French invasion of Russia.

From our perspective, no-one is going to notice if Tolstoy's 1812 Russia is "blurred by presentism" of his 1865 Russia. TBH, I wouldn't have thought of it as a historical novel, though in the strict sense it is.

I'm not familiar with the other books you mention, but I take your point about "all history is in the ether" and is subject to mythologizing. Perhaps I should tone down he bottom line of my rant and say,
"Personally I've come across a lot of unconvincing historical novels and as a genre, now approach them with scepticism, expecting to be disappointed. None the less, there are many good ones* too."

* One that I really enjoyed about a year ago was Gore Vidal's Lincoln, for instance.

This is my kind of historical novel:

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The series of books revolves around the primary characters Temeraire and Captain William Laurence. Captain Laurence is a member of the British Royal Navy, serving in combat against Napoleon's navy when he recovers a dragon egg unlike any other known to the British. The egg soon hatches, and Temeraire, a Chinese dragon, is born. Under the impression that an "unharnessed" dragon will become feral and unmanageable, Laurence becomes Temeraire's companion. Despite the difficulties this causes, Laurence begins to think of the dragon as his dearest friend. This forces a change in the sailor's life, drawing him from the prestigious Royal Navy to the less desirable Royal Aerial Corps.

The subsequent novels in the original trilogy follow the adventures of Laurence and Temeraire as they do battle with the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte and the diplomatic fallout caused by Captain Laurence's adoption by the Chinese Emperor. The fourth novel deals with Laurence and Temeraire seeking a cure for a draconic illness, introduced by a North American dragon, which spreads throughout the British dragons while Napoleon seeks to press his advantage. The fifth novel is the account of Napoleon's invasion of England, forcing a British retreat to Scotland, while Laurence faces the consequences of their treason in taking the cure for the illness to the French. The sixth novel begins within the penal colony of Australia (Laurence's death sentence for treason commuted to transport to the colony), and a chase across the continent to a discovery that has far-reaching consequences for the global war. The seventh book has Laurence returned to service and sent to South America in an attempt to secure an alliance with the Inca Empire (which still exists, though reduced, in the series timeline), then to Asia again. In the eighth book, Laurence is partially amnesiac due to injury as Temeraire and the crew deal with new intrigues in Japan and China before flying to Russia in time to be involved in the French invasion of Russia.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....1sfAT9d0VL.jpg

Anyway, just finished:

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/wp-...y-of-Kings.jpg

Moved on to:

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/p...iance_8938.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/L5Ybcyr8/3-D2-A...8261131-D3.png

This Is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture by Iain Anderson

This a fantastic read for people with a solid background knowledge on free jazz. It is VERY dense with information. It’s not juicy fun stuff about the artists though; it’s facts about the music and its recognized place in American culture. Some of the stats concerning the lack of appreciation are depressing but on the other hand, the permanence of the free jazz masters is a rectification.

Published in 2007 I hope the author has been paying attention to what has happened musically since then.

I started Wuthering Heights yesterday

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Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled, and the dogs howled.

'Wretched inmates!' I ejaculated, mentally, 'you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day time I don't care-I will get in!'

So resolved, I grasped the latch, and shook it vehemently.

https://i.redd.it/uuohzux945b31.jpg

Wuthering Heights is wild AF

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Read the first in the trilogy last week for the second time. Now on to this and eventually the end of the trilogy. Wonderful sci-fi/horror in a slow burn fashion.

Phillip k dick - Martian Time-slip

Has anyone here read The Stand? I've never read any Stephen King but I was thinking about checking it out to get me in the mood for a pandemic-sparked apocalypse.

Ive read The Stand.

I loved it start to finish.

Did you read the original or extended version? I just downloaded a copy and it says it's extended.