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June 23
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Chris
added:
The Colossus of Maroussi (Paperback)
by Henry Miller
bookshelves:
loving-greece
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in June, 2008
Chris said:
"In his gem of an campus novel, 'changing places' (a genre that he and malcolm 'history man' bradbury all but invented in the early 1970s), david lodge introduces us to the hilarious game of 'humiliation'. one thinks of a work that YOU haven't read bu...more
In his gem of an campus novel, 'changing places' (a genre that he and malcolm 'history man' bradbury all but invented in the early 1970s), david lodge introduces us to the hilarious game of 'humiliation'. one thinks of a work that YOU haven't read but you reckon everyone else has, and you win points for everyone who has indeed read it. in 'changing places', visiting Brit literatus Philip Swallow introduces the game at a dinner given by the dean of the literature faculty. At first, an ambitious thrusting don doesnt get it and pulls out all these obscure writers that no one else has read so of course he doesnt get any points. then the penny drops and he announces triumphantly ... Hamlet. he scoops the board of course but the confession is out and natch, how can the dean now even consider him for the next head of the engl lit dept.
right. i have never read henry Miller. not one. nada. shock horror.
Til i picked out colossus of M from the shelves here and i am captivated. the scales have dropped from my eyes in my adoration of larry durrell. (i can call him larry because he came to tea once and a swallow fell out of the nest and shortie L got a ladder and plonked it back in - and it lived and was not shoved out by its parents. also, mum has a postcard signed 'larry' trying to lure her to paris. mum said no, of course, but she kept the card.
Miller on greece, and bags on corfu, is brilliant. He's invited out to corfu by Durrell whose "Letters were marvelous, and yet a bit unreal to me. Durrell is a poet and his letters were poetic: they caused certain confusion in me, owing to the fact that the dream and the reality, the historical and mythological, were so artfully blended. Later I was to discover for myself that this confusion is real and not due entirely to the poetic faculty."
Miller makes friends with a lady and a splendid Greek 'character': "We immediately became firm friends. With Nicola I spoke a broken-down French; with Karamenaios a sort of cluck-cluck language made up largely of goodwill and a desire to understand one another."
Has it ever been better put? I read it and re-read it and it made me weep that my Greek is not better and got me off my backside and place phrase books in every loo so as to force my education.
Miller is that sort of muscular American writer that meets European culture and filters out the fey. Hemingway did that for Spain.
What 'Colossus' has done is to shove into middle ground perspective the excessive spell i was under by the alexandria quartet, and for that alone Miller is to be saluted
...less
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June 03
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New comment on Chris's review of
The Magnificent Flora Graeca: How the Mediterranean came to the English Garden
(see all 2 comments)
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Chris
gave
to:
The Magnificent Flora Graeca: How the Mediterranean came to the English Garden (Hardcover)
by Stephen Harris
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Chris by:
lavinia desmond
read in April, 2008
Chris said:
"This is a classic botanical book, world-famous. unique. "a publishing phenomenon", as the jacket blurb accurately has it. When published in 1830 it covered 10 double-folio volumes and cost over L20 pounds sterling even in those days (I'm re...more
This is a classic botanical book, world-famous. unique. "a publishing phenomenon", as the jacket blurb accurately has it. When published in 1830 it covered 10 double-folio volumes and cost over L20 pounds sterling even in those days (I'm reading from the blurb)
It's the story of 2 expeditions made by botanist John Sibthorp in the last quarter of the 18th century thru the Greek isles.
I know someone privileged to have seen the originals and she tells me the Ferdinand Bauer illustrations are wondrous and the colour beyond reproach.
This book is published by the distinguished Bodleian Library of Oxford Univ no less. The jacket price is 35 quid/US$60.
Shirley Sherwood, no less, is quoted on the back panel as having "seen the originals and their beauty and exquisite detail are faithfully recorded here."
I have no idea *why* Ms Sherwood should seek to mislead us. The quality of reproduction is terrible, a disgrace to the house of Bodleian and an insult to the original architects of this chef d'oeuvre who must be turning in their organic compost patch.
This is a market that knows what it wants and will pay whatever it costs for the real thing. The acid test for botanical artists (as well as production values for books sich as this) is whether they get the green right. Bauer resoundingly did; this book resoundingly does not.
Because this is essentially an illustrated work, the pictures have to be right. A non-gardener won't pay 35 pence, even for the best reproductions; a true jardinier will pay whatever it costs for the right product.
Those green-fingered among you tempted to add this to your groaning shelves, don't just take my word for it. Get hold of a copy and flip thru. Spring back in horror at the sloppiness and low standard. Caveat emptor, indeed. ...less
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June 02
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Chris
added a quote:
"Cited by the author of 'Lucky Jim' as one of the most dismal depressing questions in the English language: "Shall we go straight in?""
— Kingsley Amis
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May 26
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Chris
gave
to:
A Heart's Odyssey (Hardcover)
by Neil Macvicar
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Chris by:
susan ehrman
recommended for: phil-hellenes and visitors to corfu
read in May, 2008
Chris said:
"an absolute charmer that i must hunt down and buy more of. Macvicar came to Greece as a young gunner, met the enchanting Marila with whom he fell in love, fought his war, came back and proposed. Under the guise of family duties, Marila was whisked aw...more
an absolute charmer that i must hunt down and buy more of. Macvicar came to Greece as a young gunner, met the enchanting Marila with whom he fell in love, fought his war, came back and proposed. Under the guise of family duties, Marila was whisked away for an 8 months separation which their love survived. He came back and they married in her home (and now mine), the enchanted and enchanting city of Corfu which is exquisitely and movingly described in Macvicar's wonderful prose that classical scholars seems to be pull off. Marila's family was/is one of the distinguished Old Corfiot families and includes the distinction of 'owning' the miraculously preserved figure of none other than the island's own saint, St Spyridion.
It's only just over 150 pages but such is the author's skill and eye for exactly the right detail, that when I looked up from the last page, it was as if I had been transported back over the centuries and lived a magical history lesson. ...less
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Chris
marked as to-read:
Grace Notes (Hardcover)
by Neil Macvicar
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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May 04
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Chris
added:
The Sound of No Hands Clapping: A Memoir (MP3 CD)
by Toby Young
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Chris
gave
to:
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (Paperback)
by Toby Young
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: upper class twits; manly americans who love seeing effete limeys take a fall
read in February, 2007
Chris said:
"'you'll never eat lunch in this town again' meets 'bonfire of the vanities', but first the sort of trivia i love: englishman toby young (now festooned with children and with a killer column in the UK Spectator) enjoyed telling his new york pals that...more
'you'll never eat lunch in this town again' meets 'bonfire of the vanities', but first the sort of trivia i love: englishman toby young (now festooned with children and with a killer column in the UK Spectator) enjoyed telling his new york pals that the word 'meritocracy' had been coined as a damnation rather than praise. they disbelieve him til he reveals that it was his father who coined it to describe a nighmare society in 'the rise of the meritocracy'. not a lot of people know that.
to the book: in 1995, toby young - an upper class brit twit very much in my mould - left london for new york to write for 'vanity fair', thus giving him a ringside seat for his hilarious and devastating portrait of editor graydon carter, as comic and effete a character out of tom wolfe as one could pray to avoid.
young is even more useless and danger prone than me and his candide-like progress thru haute new york is told with honesty and clarity and huge wit.
everywhere in the USA i carried this book, people would nod and wink and thumbs up and say "isnt it great?" in slab-faced london, its too close to the bone.
if you know brit twits (like, if you know/knew me, right?) and want to have a titter over our pratfalls, this could be weekend reading with a beer and cheroots as wifey tends the barbecue.
...less
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April 26
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Chris
gave
to:
She Literally Exploded: The "Daily Telegraph" Infuriating Phrasebook (Hardcover)
by Christopher Howse, Richard Preston
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in April, 2008
Chris said:
"the trouble with this "infuriating phrasebook" (2 words, surely?) by the Telegraph's excellent christopher howse is that it gets *me* literally exploding at the mangling of the language that's come over to the UK from my erstwhile home of t...more
the trouble with this "infuriating phrasebook" (2 words, surely?) by the Telegraph's excellent christopher howse is that it gets *me* literally exploding at the mangling of the language that's come over to the UK from my erstwhile home of the US. I thought most of these spoken insults to the intelligence were restricted to a square mile off the Bainbridge Ferry but no - they seem to be everywhere and ... well don't get me started, as they say.
it's a book that will have you boiling and a surefire hit as a present.
it's arranged as a dictionary and passes my first test by listing fulsome (used as if it meant 'very full'. in reality it means disgusting by excess of flattery. even my best pals seem not to know that.
i was going to quote to sound funny and flash but every entry begs citation and i'd only lose it if i started going thru the book looking for the bigger howlers....less
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April 23
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Chris
added:
The Timewaster Letters (Paperback)
by Robin Cooper
bookshelves:
miscellany
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in December, 2007
Chris said:
"I wish i could give a minus star for wasting paper.
first a history lesson: back in 1980, satirist, writer, rake and playboy, Willie Donaldson came out with 'The Henry Root Letters', a genuinely funny lampooning of the rich famous and pretentious b...more
I wish i could give a minus star for wasting paper.
first a history lesson: back in 1980, satirist, writer, rake and playboy, Willie Donaldson came out with 'The Henry Root Letters', a genuinely funny lampooning of the rich famous and pretentious by a true wit. look up willie in wikipedia, he lived quite a life.
Now comes a new generation of 'wits' and standards have clearly fallen. Robin cooper has also had the idea of writing provocative, obviously spoof letters to various people and organisations and printing both sides of the correspondence. i say 'obviously' spoof because of the low standard of deceptive prose, but the victims seem not to spot it.
Cooper's letters are obvious, shrill and unfunny which probably explains why the replies are similarly leaden and flat. He is the classroom wag and the cheeky chappie on the playground but he is nowhere near publishable meterial. In donaldson's hands the spoofs would have been smooth parodies of the skill of craig brown.
it's a timewasting read and certainly time wasting to review and read about, but if it sends you to revisit the henry root originals, it will have been worth it. ...less
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