I literally finished reading Crisp's "The Mermaid" last night. Clearly, we are living in a simulation. Also, on a more serious note, amazing content as always Sam. Please keep making videos! SherdsTube is (easily) my favorite UA-cam channel.
Wow, that's a coincidence! Hope you got something out of it, too. Thanks so much for these encouraging words. They spur me on to keep making things. :)
I love the work of QSC so it was great to see him getting some attention here - "one-ball" is terrific! And yes, a Stefan Grabinski episode would be wonderful!
Sam, Another great showing, love your cinematography but your book choices will keep me going for years thank you! My new book of the year so far is Grand Hotel Europa Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
Thanks so much, Steve. Hope you enjoy some of them if you get a chance to read them. I looked this up and it's definitely intriguing. Thanks for the recommendation.
Hi, Sam! Thank you for answering my question so thoroughly! I love that you mentioned "The Stone Sleeper", a book whose primitive, yet profound beauty wonderfully pairs with the also mentioned "gusle". I was pleasently surprised with your knowledge of this part of the world (I'm from Croatia, by the way.), not often does an Englishman mention Selimović and Dizdar. As far as recommendations go, I'll mention a couple of well-known works, which have probably been translated into English: Ranko Marinković: "Kiklop" ("The Cyclops") Slobodan Novak: "Mirisi, zlato i tamjan" ("Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh") Danilo Kiš: "Grobnica za Borisa Davidoviča" ( "A Tomb for Boris Davidovich"). Keep up the good work!
My pleasure, Dominik! Great to hear that you appreciate Stone Sleeper, too. Thanks so much for these recommendations. Of the three you mention, I'd only come across Danilo Kiš before. 'Cyclops' looks particularly interesting. I love the Yale Margellos series it's published in, too. Will be picking it up for sure.
@@SherdsTube Happy to hear that! It's a modernist masterpiece, one of the greatest Croatian/Yugoslavian novels of the 20th century. Maybe you can find a translation of Marinković's second most famous work, the short-story collection "Ruke" ("Hands"), which largely takes place on the small Adriatic island of Vis, where he was born.
The Tartar Steppe is a great novel. Ligotti turned me on to Buzzati about 15-20 years ago. He likes him better than Kafka. Buzzati's short stories are devastating too. The Slaying of the Dragon, The Bogeyman, Just the Thing they Always Wanted, The Seventh Floor. Camus produced Buzzati's play "A Clinical Case" which was based on that story in France. Great show. Thank you. Have you ever read The Nightwatches of Bonaventura? It is excellent.
I haven't, I'm afraid. There's a Buzzati novel called 'Larger than Life' that I've been trying to get hold of. This is from the blurb: "It tells the story of a scientist who becomes entangled with a large electronic machine in which the woman he loves is reincarnated." It really sounds up my street, but also seems hard to come by. Have you read it, by any chance? Thanks for the kind words.
@@SherdsTube I wasn't even aware of it. I thought I had read everything by Buzzati that had been translated into the English language. I just put in an interlibrary loan for it. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It's a shame you weren't over at TLO years ago. Quentin and Justin used to post there all the time. Brendan Connell just occasionally. I look forward to your future videos.
Yes, I was never much of a user of forums - I'm sure I missed some fascinating discussions. Please let me know how you enjoy the book. And thank you for the kind words - I look forward to making more.
Big fan of Sherds Podcast, and this channel is becoming a favorite as well :) I follow you (Sam) on Goodreads, and you have one of the most fascinating reading patterns of anyone I know. However, according to your page, you have not read 2 of my favorite authors, who I would love to get more recognition: Michael Cisco & M. John Harrison respectively. I suspect you actually have (it seems your Goodreads page is not fully representative), especially with Harrison being one of the topmost British proponents of "New Weird Fiction". Would love to know your take on these authors, if indeed you have one. Would any of your contemporary favorites (that you mentioned in these last couple of videos) possibly be inspired/influenced by Harrison? To anyone who shares Sams's taste in intelligent genre fiction with vibrant prose, I can not recommend them enough! Especially Viriconium - in my opinion - deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of 'The Book of the New Sun' or even 'Dhalgren'. Thank you for the unique videos, appreciate the craftsmanship. /Andreas - Copenhagen
Thanks for the very kind words, Andreas. Ha, no my goodreads isn't fully representative - I've only logged things I've read there since I started using it. And I rarely put any of the poetry I read there. I find it hard to say that a poem is every truly 'read'. ;) As it happens, though, I haven't yet managed to get to Harrison properly (beyond 'The Centauri Device' when I was a lot younger), but I'm aware that I'm missing out, so will correct this soon. I'd be interested to see if he had been an influence on the authors I mentioned, so I'll make it a priority. As for Michael Cisco, he's another writer who is very much on my list. Thanks again for the encouragement and support. Take care!
@@SherdsTube I think you would particularly enjoy Harrison's The Course of the Heart if you can get hold of it (either in hard-to-find paperback or as part of the omnibus Anima) - I would maybe compare it to Machen's The Hill of Dreams which you covered on the podcast
Thanks! Harrison has come up so often I feel guilty about not having explored his work properly. Got to put that right soon. Now I have a good place to start.
I love these videos and really look forward to them. I am always amazed how you come across such esoteric writers. The most disturbing books I've ever read are certainly Metamorphosis and The Castle by Kafka. They totally twist your mind and fill you with despair. The fact Kafka died before he finished the Castle makes the non-ending even more poignant and fitting. Also excited to hear you say you want to read McCarthy this year. The Road and Blood Meridian are definitely in my top 5 books of all time. As for choosing what to read, I find I go through phases - exclusively non fiction to exclusively literary fiction to exclusively lighter stuff. At the moment I am reading the wheel of time series, which is probably a bit mainstream for this channel!
Thanks so much. Hope to continue making them. Yes, you're absolutely right about that unsettling quality in Kafka. Yes, I love both The Road and Blood Meridian. I want to make my way through everything if I can, though.
Thank you again for an illuminating video. Bruno Schulz and Andrzej Stasiuk are among my favorite Polish writers too. ( I was alerted to Schulz by W G Sebald in a letter and immediately started to seek out his books, which have left a deep impression on me ever since.)
Great video as usual! Right now, I'm reading through Beckett's entire corpus in chronological order. He's my favorite writer, but I found the excuse to do this (which I'd wanted to do for a while) by setting myself the goal of teaching a course on Beckett and philosophy in the Fall. If you do decide to devote some more in-depth attention to Beckett, even if you don't read him chronologically, I'd recommend taking a look at Ruby Cohn's _A Beckett Canon_, which discusses each piece he ever wrote in precise chronological order. Not only did this little volume make my current project possible, but it gives a nice concise account of the circumstances in which he wrote each piece. And, its chronological organization can provide some special insights - for example, because the order of composition wasn't always reflected in the order of publication.
Thanks so much, as ever, for the thoughtful comment. The course sounds very interesting - I'm glad it has given you a chance to spend lots of time with Beckett. My plan would be to read everything chronologically, so the book you recommend would be enormously helpful! Thanks again.
The squirrels! I was wondering, have you read Jon Fosse? He’s called the Norwegian Samuel Beckett, and has the most hypnotic and mesmerizing prose (the tanslations are also brilliant).
Yes! You don't see red squirrels very often in England (at least I didn't), but you can always catch them in this particular park in Warsaw. I've heard of Fosse - and seen you talking about him - but haven't tried him yet. Very keen to, though!
Reizend wie immer. Have you considered or would you be open to a Sherds Discord where a relatively enclosed and intimate circle of readers and writers with shared affinities could informally discuss these topics?
You can ignore my overly-broad, too-generalized question I sent to you on insta. Your answers here on authors of Poland and Former Yugoslavia have added to my TBR list. Though I would love to hear at some point in the future about more Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian. Hungarian, and Romanian writers. Since the fall of the Iron curtain, the possibilities for translated works seems endless.
Don't think I saw that one, Forrest! I'll have a look again. Glad to hear the writers I mentioned intersted you. Yes, I'd love to talk about writers from these countries. My experience with Romanian and Slovak writers, however, is limited to say the least. I'll try to thread these in the next time I do a Q&A, but feel free to remind me!
Hmmm, I listen to so much different stuff it's difficult to pick, so I'll just mention some artists that come to mind: Fennesz, Trio Mediæval, A. L. Lloyd, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Choking Victim, Cocteau Twins, Zoltán Kodály, Nic Jones, Björk, Jeff Rosenstock, Leoš Janáček, Cannibal Ox, Leveret, Kraftwerk, John Maus, NOFX, The Balfa Brothers, Franz Schubert, Rafael Anton Irisarri . . . Ask me on another day, I'd give a completely different list, probably.
Sam, thank you so much for answering my question so thoughtfully and thoroughly. (It also was a very weird and wonderful feeling to be addressed directly from my screen!) The Mermaid was also my very first encounter with QSC, and I still remember the physical reaction I had to it, that frisson of excitement as sentence by sentence I realised I was experiencing something exceptional. I absolutely agree with ‘The Fairy Killer’ being special. I’d add ‘Ynys Y Plwg’ (from the collection All God’s Angels Beware) into that top tier of the Crispian oeuvre as well. Both stories contain fine examples of that transitional space that QSC seems to be drawn to and writes about so evocatively. (His recent works ‘Hamster Dam’ and ‘Binturong Time’ also hinge on this kind of site.) Many writers are drawn to edgelands and liminal spaces, but only QSC goes beyond them!! Incidentally, did I mention in a previous message of how much I love your interpretation of the Q&A format video. I’ve really enjoyed the feuilleton format of these past two episodes. Your perspicacious musings on Bruno Schulz and assorted aspects of literature (especially Eastern European writers of which I am ashamedly ignorant of) is really appreciated here. All the best to you, Sam (Hope you’re surviving the heat)
Thank you for the question, Shaun! It was a delight to talk about a writer I value so much. You know, I was absolutely kicking myself for not mentioning 'Ynys-y-Plag' after I'd made the recording. What a story! I have 'Hamster Dam', but haven't yet managed to pick up 'Binturong Time'. Those Zagava books are so gorgeous, but I can't always afford to pick them up whenever I'd like. Thanks also for the kind words on the format. I've really enjoyed making them. They're a good chance to do some musing in miniature. :) It'd be nice to make them an annual thing. Take care of yourself, Shaun.
I will soon be making Parts III & IV of my Q&A video series. If you have anything burningly bookish to ask me, feel free to leave a comment here.
I literally finished reading Crisp's "The Mermaid" last night. Clearly, we are living in a simulation.
Also, on a more serious note, amazing content as always Sam. Please keep making videos! SherdsTube is (easily) my favorite UA-cam channel.
Wow, that's a coincidence! Hope you got something out of it, too.
Thanks so much for these encouraging words. They spur me on to keep making things. :)
I love the work of QSC so it was great to see him getting some attention here - "one-ball" is terrific!
And yes, a Stefan Grabinski episode would be wonderful!
Glad to hear you're a fan of QSC! I'll do my best to get to Grabiński at some point in the future.
Sam, Another great showing, love your cinematography but your book choices will keep me going for years thank you!
My new book of the year so far is Grand Hotel Europa Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
Thanks so much, Steve. Hope you enjoy some of them if you get a chance to read them.
I looked this up and it's definitely intriguing. Thanks for the recommendation.
Hi, Sam! Thank you for answering my question so thoroughly!
I love that you mentioned "The Stone Sleeper", a book whose primitive, yet profound beauty wonderfully pairs with the also mentioned "gusle". I was pleasently surprised with your knowledge of this part of the world (I'm from Croatia, by the way.), not often does an Englishman mention Selimović and Dizdar.
As far as recommendations go, I'll mention a couple of well-known works, which have probably been translated into English:
Ranko Marinković: "Kiklop" ("The Cyclops")
Slobodan Novak: "Mirisi, zlato i tamjan" ("Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh")
Danilo Kiš: "Grobnica za Borisa Davidoviča" ( "A Tomb for Boris Davidovich").
Keep up the good work!
My pleasure, Dominik! Great to hear that you appreciate Stone Sleeper, too.
Thanks so much for these recommendations. Of the three you mention, I'd only come across Danilo Kiš before. 'Cyclops' looks particularly interesting. I love the Yale Margellos series it's published in, too. Will be picking it up for sure.
@@SherdsTube Happy to hear that! It's a modernist masterpiece, one of the greatest Croatian/Yugoslavian novels of the 20th century.
Maybe you can find a translation of Marinković's second most famous work, the short-story collection "Ruke" ("Hands"), which largely takes place on the small Adriatic island of Vis, where he was born.
The Tartar Steppe is a great novel. Ligotti turned me on to Buzzati about 15-20 years ago. He likes him better than Kafka. Buzzati's short stories are devastating too. The Slaying of the Dragon, The Bogeyman, Just the Thing they Always Wanted, The Seventh Floor. Camus produced Buzzati's play "A Clinical Case" which was based on that story in France. Great show. Thank you. Have you ever read The Nightwatches of Bonaventura? It is excellent.
I haven't, I'm afraid. There's a Buzzati novel called 'Larger than Life' that I've been trying to get hold of. This is from the blurb:
"It tells the story of a scientist who becomes entangled with a large electronic machine in which the woman he loves is reincarnated."
It really sounds up my street, but also seems hard to come by. Have you read it, by any chance?
Thanks for the kind words.
@@SherdsTube I wasn't even aware of it. I thought I had read everything by Buzzati that had been translated into the English language. I just put in an interlibrary loan for it. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It's a shame you weren't over at TLO years ago. Quentin and Justin used to post there all the time. Brendan Connell just occasionally. I look forward to your future videos.
Yes, I was never much of a user of forums - I'm sure I missed some fascinating discussions.
Please let me know how you enjoy the book. And thank you for the kind words - I look forward to making more.
Thank you so much for including my question- and for the insightful answer ..!
Among my many take-aways from this video is ‘the doll’ ! Thank you so very much , ordering it now .
My pleasure, Priyanka! Thanks so much for your continual support - it's so encouraging! And for the question!
You won't regret it! :)
Big fan of Sherds Podcast, and this channel is becoming a favorite as well :)
I follow you (Sam) on Goodreads, and you have one of the most fascinating reading patterns of anyone I know.
However, according to your page, you have not read 2 of my favorite authors, who I would love to get more recognition: Michael Cisco & M. John Harrison respectively.
I suspect you actually have (it seems your Goodreads page is not fully representative), especially with Harrison being one of the topmost British proponents of "New Weird Fiction".
Would love to know your take on these authors, if indeed you have one. Would any of your contemporary favorites (that you mentioned in these last couple of videos) possibly be inspired/influenced by Harrison?
To anyone who shares Sams's taste in intelligent genre fiction with vibrant prose, I can not recommend them enough!
Especially Viriconium - in my opinion - deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of 'The Book of the New Sun' or even 'Dhalgren'.
Thank you for the unique videos, appreciate the craftsmanship.
/Andreas - Copenhagen
Thanks for the very kind words, Andreas. Ha, no my goodreads isn't fully representative - I've only logged things I've read there since I started using it. And I rarely put any of the poetry I read there. I find it hard to say that a poem is every truly 'read'. ;) As it happens, though, I haven't yet managed to get to Harrison properly (beyond 'The Centauri Device' when I was a lot younger), but I'm aware that I'm missing out, so will correct this soon. I'd be interested to see if he had been an influence on the authors I mentioned, so I'll make it a priority.
As for Michael Cisco, he's another writer who is very much on my list.
Thanks again for the encouragement and support.
Take care!
@@SherdsTube I think you would particularly enjoy Harrison's The Course of the Heart if you can get hold of it (either in hard-to-find paperback or as part of the omnibus Anima) - I would maybe compare it to Machen's The Hill of Dreams which you covered on the podcast
Thanks! Harrison has come up so often I feel guilty about not having explored his work properly. Got to put that right soon. Now I have a good place to start.
@@SherdsTube to give you a taste, his story 'Doe Lea' is published free online on Granta
I love these videos and really look forward to them. I am always amazed how you come across such esoteric writers.
The most disturbing books I've ever read are certainly Metamorphosis and The Castle by Kafka. They totally twist your mind and fill you with despair. The fact Kafka died before he finished the Castle makes the non-ending even more poignant and fitting.
Also excited to hear you say you want to read McCarthy this year. The Road and Blood Meridian are definitely in my top 5 books of all time.
As for choosing what to read, I find I go through phases - exclusively non fiction to exclusively literary fiction to exclusively lighter stuff. At the moment I am reading the wheel of time series, which is probably a bit mainstream for this channel!
Thanks so much. Hope to continue making them. Yes, you're absolutely right about that unsettling quality in Kafka.
Yes, I love both The Road and Blood Meridian. I want to make my way through everything if I can, though.
Thank you again for an illuminating video. Bruno Schulz and Andrzej Stasiuk are among my favorite Polish writers too.
( I was alerted to Schulz by W G Sebald in a letter and immediately started to seek out his books, which have left a deep impression on me ever since.)
My pleasure. Ah, interesting! A nice way to find your way to him.
Thanks! Enjoyable and thought provoking.
My pleasure.
A joke? Mwah hahaha!!!! Screwed up face, the ultimate lowerer of tension: childish faces! Nice touch
Great video as usual! Right now, I'm reading through Beckett's entire corpus in chronological order. He's my favorite writer, but I found the excuse to do this (which I'd wanted to do for a while) by setting myself the goal of teaching a course on Beckett and philosophy in the Fall. If you do decide to devote some more in-depth attention to Beckett, even if you don't read him chronologically, I'd recommend taking a look at Ruby Cohn's _A Beckett Canon_, which discusses each piece he ever wrote in precise chronological order. Not only did this little volume make my current project possible, but it gives a nice concise account of the circumstances in which he wrote each piece. And, its chronological organization can provide some special insights - for example, because the order of composition wasn't always reflected in the order of publication.
Thanks so much, as ever, for the thoughtful comment. The course sounds very interesting - I'm glad it has given you a chance to spend lots of time with Beckett. My plan would be to read everything chronologically, so the book you recommend would be enormously helpful! Thanks again.
Damn. Seen you from the side for the first time. You sure look like a greek philosopher! Looks messy, intellectual and great! haha
The squirrels!
I was wondering, have you read Jon Fosse? He’s called the Norwegian Samuel Beckett, and has the most hypnotic and mesmerizing prose (the tanslations are also brilliant).
Yes! You don't see red squirrels very often in England (at least I didn't), but you can always catch them in this particular park in Warsaw. I've heard of Fosse - and seen you talking about him - but haven't tried him yet. Very keen to, though!
@@SherdsTube I would love to hear what you think of his books 😊
What should I start with, Silje?
@@SherdsTube I’d say Septology, but Trilogy is also a good place to start.
Reizend wie immer. Have you considered or would you be open to a Sherds Discord where a relatively enclosed and intimate circle of readers and writers with shared affinities could informally discuss these topics?
You can ignore my overly-broad, too-generalized question I sent to you on insta. Your answers here on authors of Poland and Former Yugoslavia have added to my TBR list. Though I would love to hear at some point in the future about more Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian. Hungarian, and Romanian writers. Since the fall of the Iron curtain, the possibilities for translated works seems endless.
Don't think I saw that one, Forrest! I'll have a look again. Glad to hear the writers I mentioned intersted you. Yes, I'd love to talk about writers from these countries. My experience with Romanian and Slovak writers, however, is limited to say the least. I'll try to thread these in the next time I do a Q&A, but feel free to remind me!
Your brief mentioning of yugoslavian music made me wonder: What are some of your favorite pieces (or albums) of music (if you don't mind to share)?
Hmmm, I listen to so much different stuff it's difficult to pick, so I'll just mention some artists that come to mind:
Fennesz, Trio Mediæval, A. L. Lloyd, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Choking Victim, Cocteau Twins, Zoltán Kodály, Nic Jones, Björk, Jeff Rosenstock, Leoš Janáček, Cannibal Ox, Leveret, Kraftwerk, John Maus, NOFX, The Balfa Brothers, Franz Schubert, Rafael Anton Irisarri . . .
Ask me on another day, I'd give a completely different list, probably.
@@SherdsTube Thanks! Some of them I haven't heard of, so I'm excited to explore them! Björk and Schubert are also among my favorites.
Damn bro you’ve got some elite taste. Tartar steppe is the book that actually made me pursue my dreams through complete existential horror and shit
Ha, thanks. Wow, now there's a life-changing read. Good for you.
Genius channel. Immediate subscribe.
Thank you! Very glad to have you.
Fantastic. Thanks.
Thank you!
Not a Charles Dickens fan, eh?
Ha! Not especially - let's say my relationship with him is complicated. ;)
Well reflected in the video too 😅
Love the "stinkeye". 😄
Sam, thank you so much for answering my question so thoughtfully and thoroughly. (It also was a very weird and wonderful feeling to be addressed directly from my screen!)
The Mermaid was also my very first encounter with QSC, and I still remember the physical reaction I had to it, that frisson of excitement as sentence by sentence I realised I was experiencing something exceptional.
I absolutely agree with ‘The Fairy Killer’ being special. I’d add ‘Ynys Y Plwg’ (from the collection All God’s Angels Beware) into that top tier of the Crispian oeuvre as well. Both stories contain fine examples of that transitional space that QSC seems to be drawn to and writes about so evocatively. (His recent works ‘Hamster Dam’ and ‘Binturong Time’ also hinge on this kind of site.) Many writers are drawn to edgelands and liminal spaces, but only QSC goes beyond them!!
Incidentally, did I mention in a previous message of how much I love your interpretation of the Q&A format video. I’ve really enjoyed the feuilleton format of these past two episodes. Your perspicacious musings on Bruno Schulz and assorted aspects of literature (especially Eastern European writers of which I am ashamedly ignorant of) is really appreciated here.
All the best to you, Sam
(Hope you’re surviving the heat)
Thank you for the question, Shaun! It was a delight to talk about a writer I value so much. You know, I was absolutely kicking myself for not mentioning 'Ynys-y-Plag' after I'd made the recording. What a story! I have 'Hamster Dam', but haven't yet managed to pick up 'Binturong Time'. Those Zagava books are so gorgeous, but I can't always afford to pick them up whenever I'd like.
Thanks also for the kind words on the format. I've really enjoyed making them. They're a good chance to do some musing in miniature. :) It'd be nice to make them an annual thing.
Take care of yourself, Shaun.
ρгό𝔪σŞｍ
Le first
:)