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In this thread, we choose one work of Resources: Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org - A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best. SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/ - A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.  For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM the moderation team. Past Books of the Month [for BOTM before 2019, refer to archives] 2019: January: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky February: BEAR by Marian Engel March: V. by Thomas Pynchon April: The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout May: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman June: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann July: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach August: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay September: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay October: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado November: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett December: Moby Dick by Herman Melville 2020: January: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair February: WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin March: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini by Benvenuto Cellini April: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio May: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Dame Rebecca West June: The African Queen by C. S. Forester July: The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale August: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire, by Howard Pyle September: Strange Hotel, by Eimear McBride October:Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (怪談)("Ghost Stories"), by Lafcadio Hearn November: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears) , by Matthew Hongoltz Hetling December: Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Drury Clark 2021: January: The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley February: How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart March: Carrier Wave by Robert Brockway April: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian May: You Can't Win by Jack Black June:Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson July:Can Such Things Be by Ambrose Bierce August: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust September:A Dreamer's Tales by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany October:We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson November:Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers December:Hogfather by Terry Pratchett 2022: January: The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway Current:  Les Contes Drolatiques by Honore de Balzac Book available here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.32222/mode/2up illustrated by Gustave Dore: https://archive.org/details/drollstories00balziala/page/n5/mode/2up About the book quote:Les Contes drolatiques (1832–37), tales of nymphomania and scatological pranks set in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, were Balzac's attempt at reviving a tradition of robust, comic literature. ‘Le rire,’ he declared in 1830, ‘est un besoin en France, et […] le public demande à sortir des catacombes où le mènent, de cadavre en cadavre, peintres, poètes et prosateurs.’1 Though condemned as immoral by many of their first readers, the thirty tales were largely tolerated in France as a celebration of Rabelaisian humour.2 Abroad, however, the Contes have repeatedly fallen foul of censorship and misrepresentation. The aim of this article is to consider the way in which the form and context of their publication, from scholarly editions to penny pornography, fuelled hostility towards the Contes, primarily in England but also in North America, in the period before 1945. .. . https://academic.oup.com/fsb/article-abstract/32/118/11/757984 quote:
This is Balzac's only short story collection. quote:As you might suspect from the above quote (Prologue, Volume 1), though humorous, many of the stories are a bit risqué. They are set in the sixteenth century and written in old style language. Balzac’s original plan was to write one hundred of these short stories, but only thirty were completed at the time of his death. Generally available in three groups of ten, the final ten were completed and published in 1837. quote:
https://balzacbooks.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/droll-stories-by-honore-de-balzac/   About the author quote:Balzac's work habits were legendary. He wrote from 1 am to 8 am every morning and sometimes even longer. Balzac could write very rapidly; some of his novels, written with a quill, were composed at a pace equal to thirty words per minute on a modern typewriter.[57] His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He often worked for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle.[23] quote:Balzac's extensive use of detail, especially the detail of objects, to illustrate the lives of his characters made him an early pioneer of literary realism.[77] While he admired and drew inspiration from the Romantic style of Scottish novelist Walter Scott, Balzac sought to depict human existence through the use of particulars.[78] In the preface to the first edition of Scènes de la Vie privée, he wrote: "the author firmly believes that details alone will henceforth determine the merit of works".[79] Plentiful descriptions of décor, clothing, and possessions help breathe life into the characters.[80] For example, Balzac's friend Henri de Latouche had a good knowledge of hanging wallpaper. Balzac transferred this to his descriptions of the Pension Vauquer in Le Père Goriot, making the wallpaper speak of the identities of those living inside.[81] quote:Balzac was influenced by the counter-revolutionary philosopher and statesman Louis de Bonald,[105] and once remarked that "[w]hen it beheaded Louis XVI, the Revolution beheaded in his person all fathers of families."[106] Nevertheless, his keen insight regarding working-class conditions earned him the esteem of many socialists including Marxists. Engels declared that Balzac was his favorite writer. Marx's Das Kapital also makes some references to the works of Balzac, and Trotsky famously read Balzac in the middle of meetings of the Central Committee, much to the consternation of his colleagues and comrades. quote:Balzac influenced writers of his time and beyond. He has been compared to Charles Dickens and is considered one of Dickens' significant influences. Literary critic W. H. Helm calls one "the French Dickens" and the other "the English Balzac",[107] while another critic, Richard Lehan, states that "Balzac was the bridge between the comic realism of Dickens and the naturalism of Zola".[108] Pacing  Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law. Please post after you read! Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion. References and Further Materials A selection of Gustav Dore's illustrations: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2017/12/15/gustave-dores-contes-drolatiques/ Suggestions for Future Months These threads aren't just for discussing the current BOTM; If you have a suggestion for next month's book, please feel free to post it in the thread below also. Generally what we're looking for in a BotM are works that have 1) accessibility -- either easy to read or easy to download a free copy of, ideally both 2) novelty -- something a significant fraction of the forum hasn't already read 3) discussability -- intellectual merit, controversiality, insight -- a book people will be able to talk about. Final Note: Thanks, and we hope everyone enjoys the book! Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 02:35
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This particular text had perhaps an overly-large impact on my youthful reading because for some reason -- I suspect the ban may have had something to do with it -- there were always lavishly illustrated copies floating around in every library I dug through back in my youth in the '80s, illustrated with art like this:   There have been lots of illustrations of this over the decades by a number of different quite talented artists, so I'll try to post more samples as the thread progresses a bit. Here's a blog post with a lot of the Ralph Barton illustrations I just posted samples of: http://plusoumoinstrente.blogspot.com/2013/04/barton-avec-balzac.html Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 02:52
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Look this book is well-written, free to download, and horny as hell what more could you want
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Feb 9, 2022 06:24
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There is a film adaptation apparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Pleasure_Is_Your_Pleasure 
Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 15:46
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I just finished "The Venial Sin", which was very funny. The scene where the "page of darkness" is seduced by the seneschal's wife's feet had me cracking up, especially the heaven's gate euphemism.
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Feb 14, 2022 03:36
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This might have been the least successful BOTM so far, so  Need suggestions for next month. So far I have A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Serhiy Zhadan’s Depeche Mode Ring of Bright Water Clarissa Blood Spatters Quickly by Edward D. Wood Jr. (yes that Ed Wood) Village Evenings Near Dikanka History of the Paris Commune Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Feb 25, 2022 |
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Feb 25, 2022 00:21
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https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1497030618219229188?s=20&t=u5gvWfe0AGbqVNeb8VPrtg
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Feb 25, 2022 03:10
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I actually thought I'd read this, but have been swamped lately. I'll probably get around to it six months later, like I usually do with these threads! I appreciate that you take care of the BotM threads, and I've found some favourites during the years, and the discussion is usually great. Thank you!
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Feb 25, 2022 06:19
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