What are you reading now - and then

[sukumvit boy]

I just read a fascinating article in the July 26,2021 issue of "The New Yorker" magazine entitled "Hope Against Hope" in the " Annals Of Democracy" series about Lyubov Sobol and her work with Alexey Navalny exposing the crimes and corruption of Putin's kleptocracy.
Additionally the author Masha Gessen ,who identifies as 'they' is a trans journalist and author . Well worth reading.
Sorry I can't post a link right now , my desktop is having some "issues" .LOL.

[sukumvit boy]

Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost " about the Congo with a fascinating cast of characters including the newly appointed steamboat captain Josef Korzenowski (Joseph Conrad) and Henry Morton Stanley (of David Livingston fame)

[Stavros]

Do you know of the late Crawford Young's books on Africa and the Congo? I read Politics in the Congo (1965) when I was a student and was impressed by it. I love Conrad too, one of my favourite writers, but I wonder if I shall ever understand all the layers of meaning in Heart of Darkness...for its length one of the most complex works of fiction ever written. If it is fiction...

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks,I will certainly look into the Crawford Young books! As to fact vs fiction in "Heart of Darkness" Hochschild's research points to several people that Conrad was likely to have come across during his time in the Congo including one that paid a bounty on heads that he stuck on poles surrounding his front garden and Hochschild theorizes that the Kurtz character is a composite of those people.

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks,I will certainly look into the Crawford Young books! As to fact vs fiction in "Heart of Darkness" Hochschild's research points to several people that Conrad was likely to have come across during his time in the Congo including one that paid a bounty on heads that he stuck on poles surrounding his front garden and Hochschild theorizes that the Kurtz character is a composite of those people.

When I say "people" I use the term loosely ,such a collection of real life brutal psychopaths as one would ever be likely to encounter outside of an Auschwitz.
"Oh, the horror" Some sections of text and photographs are almost too horrible to read and view.

[sukumvit boy]

New book just published ,"In the forest of no joy" by J P Daughton about the deadly construction of the Congo-Ocean Railroad in 1934 ,Looks very interesting although I see that M Crawford Young has probably already reported those events in his oeuvre as recommended by Stavros.
https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Crawford_Young

[sukumvit boy]

John Richardson's ,"Sacred Monsters ,Sacred Masters". As recommended by Stavros in another thread.
Just so fascinating and entertaining .
Superbly written ,this is the famous art historian just having fun! And what a cast of characters! Famous artists, authors ,publishers and scoundrels surrounding the birth of Modern Art in the 20th Century ,up close and very personal.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sh...Sacred_Masters

[Stavros]

John Richardson's ,"Sacred Monsters ,Sacred Masters". As recommended by Stavros in another thread.
Just so fascinating and entertaining .
Superbly written ,this is the famous art historian just having fun! And what a cast of characters! Famous artists, authors ,publishers and scoundrels surrounding the birth of Modern Art in the 20th Century ,up close and very personal.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sh...Sacred_Masters

I am pleased that you liked it, I particularly like the chapters on Dali, Warhol and Armand Hammer. There is a new series on American Art presented by Andrew-Graham-Dixon, though I am not convinced he succeeded in creating any real interest in the Abstract artists such as Barnett Newman, Mark Rotko and Jackson Pollock. There is a point where the context of modern American an explain why they painted the way that they did, but if the ultimate aim is to make a person regard themselves and their being, then the focus on the painting is diverted and lost, and becomes pointless. I don't need to sit in Rothko's Chapel to contemplate my place in the Universe, and am as sceptical of his work just as my father was baffled by the Seagram collection we saw in the old Tate many years ago. Tom Wolfe in The Painted Word is more savage in his criticism of the critics who turned minimalism into million dollar collectibles, and I agree there is a complex agenda here, but what is art for? Consider the difference between Stillman or Newman's 'critique' of materialism in America, and either Picasso's Guernica, or Goya's Third of May, 1808, two paintings that contain more meaning and enduring rage than the anaemic impotence of the Americans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...-modern-dreams

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks for the heads up about Tom Wolfe's book. I haven't read his work in years but that looks very good. Also thanks for the Andrew Graham Dixon link and although that only works in the UK ,I found it on my Amazon Prime and will check it out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Word
I haven't finished reading "Sacred Monsters" yet and am looking forward to the chapters you mentioned which are all in the second half of the book.

[sukumvit boy]

Any Chess enthusiasts out there ? Just read John Donaldson's new book ,"Bobby Fischer and His World" which is outstanding . Also several good new books by and about Magnus Carlsen the current World Champion .
Fischer spent many of the latter years of his life in Los Angeles and in the Pasadena and South Pasadena area where I have lived for the past 30 years and we had several excellent chess clubs. However due to the pandemic shut down several have lost their leases and are in the process of finding new quarters . Thus of late I must spend more time reading about Chess than playing it to feed my Chess addiction.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/outsta...-and-his-world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen