Phear the phlat books!

[muckefuck]

Earlier today I walked past a pile of un- and partly-read books stacked on the shelf, so I tried the page 100 test on all of them. To my delight, each began with a complete paragraph, so I present them here for your amusement. Votes on which contains the most pretentious prose will be tabulated and summarised pour moi. Also, anyone who can successfully identity all five volumes will have my undying respect. (Google away; I don't think even half of them are online yet.)

1. It was Shrovetide. Nastasya Petrovna and I had managed, only just, to obtain tickets for an evening performance at the theatre. It was a performance of Esmeralda which she had long wanted to see. The show went very well and, in accordance with Russian custom, ended very late. The night was a fine one, and Nastasya Petrovna and I walked home together. As we went, I noticed that my distiller's wife was in a very reflective state of mind, and that many of her replies were non sequiturs.

2. He was young and plump and had a nose like a duckling, his round, peasant's face emerged from his stiff ecclesiastical collar, and he dropped his eyes.

3. The attractive coast road swings across the headland to Myrtleville, a tiny but much-favoured beach now surrounded by little villas. Among the older houses is the former Mirmar, built by Sir John Trant and originally known as the 'Cottage on the Rocks'. As a member of the diplomatic corps Sir John travelled widely, accompanied by his daughter Clarissa whose Journal of Clarissa Trant recounts her various experiences as well as giving a glimpse of life in this small and once relatively isolated cover.

4. Christopher was thrilled by the austerity of Edward's tone. He was also chilled--more so than he would admit to himself. Did he already know that he would never take the street to that café?

5. That year of her return to Dublin and the years following--1911 and 1912--were years of terrible misery for the poor, not merely of Dublin but the United Kingdom. In England, where national politics readily assimilated these economic problems, everything passed off more or less smoothly, but what started in Dublin as a series of Labour troubles ended in a revolution. That merger between socialism and nationalism she was to symbolize when she fought, in 1916, with the Citizen Army under the flag of the Plough and the Stars.

Is it any wonder I haven't made more progress in devouring new acquisitions to my library?

Comments

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Cosmos and Pornografia

The Lie of the Land

The Will to Believe

Constance Markievicz

I actually own three of them.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I knew if anyone would ace this, it would be you! Too bad you only got four out of five.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Shoot me. And Other Fucking Stories.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Have another shot yourself.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Mother isn't drinking just now. Not quite sure why other than I just don't feel up to it. Whisk(e)y is so much more a cold weather drink, and other than gin and tonic, so medicinal, I haven't really taken to any of the bright, forthy summer libations.

Maybe a crisp champagne cocktail?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

My solution? Use sloe gin!

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

But where oh where to get the sloe berries? The local farmer's market doesn't source them!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

They must not be part of the Sloe Food movement!

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Verily.

[gasterea.livejournal.com]

Good gracious me! A Leskov (Ovtsebyk) I even haven't HEARD about before today. You truly amaze me.

and an English word I haven't heard before either

[gasterea.livejournal.com]

Is it translated the Muskox too?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Huh?

[gasterea.livejournal.com]

Well, I shamelessly googled in Russian (as most of the Russian 19th century Classics are online) and come up with the Ovtsebyk, or Musk-Ox result, apparently one of the first things Leskov wrote too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Leskov (ironically Russian Wiki doesn't lis it at all!)

Is the English translation "A Bull story" or smth?
I guess your copy of Lady Macbeth has it included.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Oh, I got you now. I don't have my copy handy, but I'll check when I get home. (Despite the fact that this is a mass-market Penguin paperback, I can't find a table of contents for it anywhere online. Lame!)

p.s.

[gasterea.livejournal.com]

Here's the Russian text online - just in case

http://az.lib.ru/l/leskow_n_s/text_0001.shtml

[wwidsith.livejournal.com]

I think I see Gombrowicz there, no idea about the others. I like the first one, whatever it is.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

And my summer reads are just a few Haruki Murakami's books which I'm loving...

Right after I must start with my uni stuff

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Probably a dumb question: What is the page 100 test? And does it only work if page 100 starts with a complete paragraph?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ask princeofcairo! He may not have invented it, but he is the one who introduced me to it.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

If you don't enjoy reading pretentious prose, why buy it?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

If I enjoy it, then where's the pretension?

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

So the reader is not just an observer, but a participant? How richly layered!