Gay boyz reading

[jawnbc]

I'm reading:

"La grosse femme d'a coté est enceinte" (slowly)--The fat lady next door is pregnant. Michel Tremblay. Taking a looong time due to my barely serviceable French.

'Atonement" Ian McEwan. Apparently fabulous but ploggin so far

A whack of journal articles on HIV/AIDS, injection drug use, homosexuality and social capital.

So what you boyz reading?

Comments

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

I have a nasty habit of having a whole handful of books on the go at once, depending on the mood I'm in, and taking forever to actually finish any one of them. The current assortment:

Austin Clarke, The Polished Hoe
Yann Martel, The Life of Pi
Lynn Coady, Saints of Big Harbour
Ken Wiwa, In the Shadow of a Saint
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct

[jawnbc]

Wowsa--how is the Austin Clarke? I was disappointed he won the Giller over Unless by Shields....? I thought Pi was brilliantly executed but since he lifted the plot from someone else he should've given back the Booker.

But that's just my opinion.... :)

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

The Clarke is quite interesting so far. Not to suggest that this is what was going on for you in particular, but certainly the media tone in general when he won the Giller seemed to imply a sense of "but Carol Shields is Approved CanLit [tm], how dare those presumptuous Giller judges give the prize to some (black) guy nobody's ever heard of?"

So, being the good boy that I am, I decided that I would read both books before casting any judgment of my own. Although, my budget being what it is, I still haven't read (or bought) the Shields book.

As for Martel, again, I'd want to know a whole lot more about the situation before drawing any conclusions. I'd need to know how much he actually lifted from the Brazilian novel -- was it just the basic idea of a child lost at sea, or did he lift the entire thing wholesale? That's one question that was never effectively answered for me in that controversy, and I don't necessarily think that borrowing elements of another writer's work for inspiration is a mortal sin, as long as the resulting work doesn't feel like a WalMart knockoff.

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to say I haven't read any Ken Saro-Wiwa, although I've heard his son interviewed on the radio. Wole Soyinka was very upset at Ken Saro-Wiwa's death and wrote some biting indictments of the government. Nigeria has a legacy in the oil industry that looks VERY pessimistic.

[jawnbc]

yeah, it's a hideous legacy...and the ignorance of most folks in the West/North about it is terrible. The book above is by his son Ken, who lives in (I think) Edmonton or Calgary. Certainly Canada...

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

The book I'm reading is actually by Ken Saro-Wiwa's son, about coming to terms with the legacy of having had Saro-Wiwa for a father. It's quite interesting, and he's a regular contributor to The Globe & Mail.

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

Yes, sirs. I understood that but didn't make myself clear in my response. :-)