Terry Teachout's Blog, page 103

TT: Almanac

"It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate awaiting them on this earth."

Joseph Conrad, Chance

TT: We're traveling today

See you tomorrow.

TT: Just because

Merle Travis sings and plays "Nine Pound Hammer" and "Mus'rat":



(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

TT: Almanac

"One would not expect a person who talks so much of forgiving herself to have anything valuable to say about forgiveness. She does not consider the possibility that incontinent forgiveness, deemed good in itself regardless of the act to be forgiven or the attitude of the person to be forgiven, means that no human behavior is beyond the pale, that nothing is unforgivable."

Theodore Dalrymple, "Sentimentalizing Serial Murder" (City Journal, Autumn 2012)

TT: Over on the right

I've been moving around so much in recent weeks that I only just got around to updating the "Top Five" and "Out of the Past" modules of the right-hand column with fresh picks. Scroll down, take a peek, and see what's new.

LITERARY HISTORY

Richard Huggett, The Truth About Pygmalion . Originally published in 1969, this deftly written, admirably concise study of how George Bernard Shaw's most popular play made it to the stage is forgotten today save by Shaw specialists. It shouldn't be. Few such books pack more information into a smaller package, and fewer still do so with such engaging wit (TT).

NOVEL

Dorothy B. Hughes, The Expendable Man (New York Review Books, $14.95 paper). Back in print for the first time since 1963, this taut exercise in noir fiction tells the terrifying tale of an intern who picks up a hitchhiker in the desert and finds himself plunged into a they-won't-believe-me nightmare. Best known today for writing the novel on which Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place was based, Hughes turns out to be a first-class thriller writer who deserves to be far better known. A word to the wise: do not peek at Walter Mosley's afterword until you've finished reading The Expendable Man! You really don't want to spoil the surprise (TT).

FILM

Local Hero . If, like me, you have a weakness for whimsical portraits of small-town life, you'll love Bill Forsyth's 1983 comedy about a slightly cracked oil-comedy boss (Burt Lancaster) who dispatches a no-nonsense junior executive (Peter Riegert) to a tiny Scottish seaside village in order to buy it out and send the locals packing. No, the outcome isn't in any way surprising, but Local Hero is delicately fey and completely charming (TT).

ALBUM

Classic Earl Hines Sessions 1928-1945 (Mosaic, seven CDs). The first large-scale box set of its kind, this digitally remastered collection, drawn from Sony's archives, contains 171 tracks that cover Hines' twin careers as a radically innovative solo jazz pianist and immensely potent swing-era bandleader. Included are recordings originally released by OKeh, Victor, Brunswick, Vocalion, Bluebird, and Signature, including a considerable number of his finest 78-era sides. Brian Priestley's detailed liner notes are as good as anything that's ever been written about Hines, and the sound, as usual with Mosaic, is pristine (TT).

BOOK

Douglas Smith, Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30). This harrowing chronicle is, incredibly, the first full-length history of of the mass murder of Russia's aristocrats and noble families in the wake of the Russian Revolution. It's a superb piece of work, utterly direct and unforgettably honest, which tells the truth without falling victim to dewy-eyed nostalgia for the "good old days" of fantastic wealth and working-class immiseration. Recommended without reservation (TT).