Italo Calvino - If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Welcome back.  Tomorrow we'll discuss Pale Fire--I hope everyone is enjoying it in some capacity.  I'm oscillating between rapturous epiphany and crushing bamboozlement as well as struggling with a lack of time to devote to it.  Unfortunately, I'll have to take off a bit early from the discussion, so hopefully that won't put a damper on anything.

For next month, let's try some Calvino.  I've read four or five of his works and can definitely vouch for the man, but the present selection, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, is one I haven't read.  Seems like his works tend to fall into either more "standard" charcter-driven narratives (The Watcher) or more Borges-esque examinations of metaphysics and the nature of reality (T-Zero).  Kind of sounds like this one combines these elements... but I can't say for sure.  Discussion is at 7 PM on July 8th at Books Inc, 2251 Chestnut St, SF (the usual spot).

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another.
--from http://www.booksinc.net/book/9780156439619

Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire

Interesting Nadja discussion tonight--thanks for attending!  Next month, Vincent's request, Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov.  I've never read anything by him, so the only information I can divulge is that I'm basically jazzed about the whole operation.  Discussion is on June 10th at 7 PM.

In Pale Fire Nabokov offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue.
--from http://www.booksinc.net/book/9780679723424

Andre Breton - Nadja

So next month I promised we'd do Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, but I know I'm going to be (again) hard pressed for time finishing off term papers, so I thought I'd postpone Nabokov to June and do Andre Breton's Nadja next month, a book I know quite well and can be read in a matter of hours. We've been discussing the relative merits/demerits of surrealism lately, so we might as well go to the source! Discussion is May 13th at 7 PM.


Nadja, originally published in France in 1928, is the first and perhaps best Surrealist romance ever written, a book which defined that movement's attitude toward everyday life.The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in the city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work--pictures of various 'surreal' people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in Nadja's presence and which inspire him to meditate on their reality or lack of it.
--from http://www.booksinc.net/book/9780802150264

J.P. Donleavy - Ginger Man

Still on for Sunday--sorry about the seriously lacking pitch last month for Orlando... since then, I read it and utterly enjoyed it (and I hope you all did too), not that I expect that statement to convince anyone to read it by tomorrow at 7 PM, when we'll have our discussion about it, but hey...

Got to get this one down for J.P. Donleavy because I can feel the busy-ness breathing down my neck for next week... Thanks to Jolee for the suggestion of The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthasar B, but I had to go with Ginger Man for distribution/availability/length issues (sorry!). Should be a good read and accidentally fits the Irish theme happening right now for St. Patrick's Day... Discussion is April 8th at 7 PM.


First published in Paris in 1955, and originally banned in the United States, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavys wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Danger-field, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. He barely has time for his studies and avoids bill collectors, makes love to almost anything in a skirt, and tries to survive without having to descend into the bottomless pit of steady work. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable--and he satisfies it with endless charm.
--from http://www.booksinc.net/book/9780802144669

Virginia Woolf - Orlando

Next month, Virginia Woolf's Orlando will be discussed on March 11th at 7 PM. I know nothing about it!


Begun as a "joke," Orlando is Virginia Woolf's fantastical biography of a poet who first appears as a sixteen-year-old boy at the court of Elizabeth I, and is left at the novel's end a married woman in the year 1928. Part love letter to Vita Sackville-West, part exploration of the art of biography, Orlando is one of Woolf's most popular and entertaining works. This new annotated edition will deepen readers' understanding of Woolf's brilliant creation.
--from http://www.booksinc.net/book/9780156031516

Georges Bataille - Story of the Eye

Finished Watt, whoa... I'll can it til the discussion tomorrow (7 PM). In the meantime, thought I'd start repping for next month, we'll be reading Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye. Very quick book but a definite favorite. Only caveat: there's abundant lewd conduct and a bit of violence, so discretion is advised to those possessed of sensitive palettes... in other words, it's a crowd-pleaser! Discussion is February 12th at 7 PM.

In 1928, Georges Bataille published this first novel under a pseudonym, a legendary shocker that uncovers the dark side of the erotic by means of forbidden obsessive fantasies of excess and sexual extremes. A classic of pornographic literature, Story of the Eye finds the parallels in Sade and Nietzsche and in the investigations of contemporary psychology; it also forecasts Bataille's own theories of ecstasy, death and transgression which he developed in later work.
--from http://www.booksinc.net/book/9780872862098

Tonite: James Joyce's 'The Dead' -- Part 2 on KQED

"James Joyce's 'The Dead' -- Part 2
The show features "The Dead," by James Joyce, performed by Rene Auberjonois, Fionnula Flanagan and Isaiah Sheffer.
Sat, Jan 7, 2012 -- 8:00pm"
http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=RD41