RussellinVT’s Comments (group member since Apr 11, 2024)

RussellinVT’s comments from the Ersatz TLS group.

Berkley wrote: "...Have you read Schopenhauer? At the end of the first volume of The World as Will and Representation he has about a hundred pages of "A Critique of the Kantian Philosophy", which is very interesting to read after reading Kant."

I've never tried Schopenhauer. This sounds like a good way in. Not just yet, though. I think I shall be quite a long time working through Kant.

AB76 wrote: "Just watched a brilliant documentary called Gaucho Gaucho about Gaucho's in Salta, NW Argentina..."

Sounds tempting, AB. Did you ever read The Purple Land by WH Hudson? I've had a copy for years, inherited from my father, but have a vague awareness that what was a success a hundred years ago in the English gent/adventure/romance genre comes across today as very dated - so it sits on the shelf unread.

Tam wrote: "I walked out of a film last night (during the interval) the first time in years that I have actually failed to get to the end of a film in a cinema that I thought I would be quite interested in. This was "The Brutalist"..."

Having worked for several years in an office building that was a very depressing specimen of the brutalist style, I don't think I would ever be tempted to watch the movie, so I'm glad to have my prejudice confirmed!

JM Synge and his World by Robin Skelton (author of an earlier full-length critical biography) is short and informative, with 130 illustrations, many of them striking.

I had not realized quite how far Synge, born in 1871, was regarded as an Alien by his strongly religious family, entrenched representatives of the Anglo-Irish Protestant ascendancy, with their country estates and comfortable lives. First he showed no inclination to pursue a useful profession such as lawyer (like his father) or clergyman (like his grandfather and brother) but rather took up the violin. Then he lost his faith, upon reading Darwin, and declined any longer to attend church. Then, even worse, he started sympathizing with peasants evicted from estate cottages, and with the Nationalist cause generally. Still, after obtaining an undistinguished pass degree at Trinity College, he continued to receive an allowance that enabled him to carry on with his music studies, in Würzburg and Paris and Rome. He turned to writing only after deciding for himself that he lacked the confidence to become a solo performer.

His most intensely formative experience was a visit to the wild far west of Ireland, in 1898, the first of many. For Synge it was not just an escape from middle-class gentility and religion codified as morality. He felt himself “beyond the dwelling place of man” and “in touch with a world of inarticulate power.” He wondered if there is not a connection “between the wild mythology that is accepted on the islands and the strange beauty of the women.” Skelton conveys it all well.

Characters and stories Synge found there of course provide the inspiration for his plays. Several of the less well-known sound well worth reading, and his non-fiction account of the poor fishing communities in The Aran Islands is said to be “faithful and moving.” The book included essentially none of the faery which Lady Gregory had urged him to add, and to which she and Yeats “were so addicted.”

His best work dates from his thirties. By age 38 he was dead, from Hodgkin’s. He fell in love with several women, and was rejected by all of them, until at the last he was accepted by a young woman half his age who was working class, largely uneducated, a papist and and an actress – and so, from every point of view, seen as desperately unsuitable by the family – but who became a leading performer at The Abbey Theatre. He died before the wedding.

Every day I read a bit more of Junger’s war journals. With some diaries you want to read as fast as you can, to get on to the next bit of gossip or entertaining anecdote. With Junger it’s different. The writing is so discerning, and his appreciation so refined - of other authors, of Parisian culture, of nature and the people he meets - that you want to savour each moment, just as he did.

One early comment of his that I’m still pondering on is about the “damage” Burckhardt caused with his book on the Renaissance, “especially those Nietzschean impulses that spread through the educated class.” What can he mean? There’s nothing of that sort that I can remember. Perhaps it’s the chapter on the state as a work of art, or the final section on morality. I shall have to take a look.

In L’Adversaire Emmanuel Carrère tells how he gains the confidence of the killer in part because while in prison awaiting trial the man reads, with approval, Carrère’s La classe de neige (1995). This led me to read it myself. It’s a short novel about a lonely young boy with a controlling father and a submissive mother. The boy goes off to the mountains with his class to spend two weeks combining schoolwork with ski lessons. The trip turns nightmarish as the police hunt for another young boy who has been abducted. Carrère is a master of the gripping story.

Next up from Carrère is Limonov, a bizarre true-life story of a wandering Russian poet (recommended by GP on WWR). I’m not sure I shall ever be able to bring myself to read his book V13 on the Bataclan mass trial, even though it has a powerful reputation.

Robert wrote: "I've been looking at the new Pamela Harriman bio, Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell..."

Entertaining stuff, Robert. I feel proud to have such a person in our history! Why should only the French have grand horizontals?

Tam wrote: "I am struggling with 'Light Perpetual'. It had a great start, but I am finding it hard to warm to the five main characters..."

I hope you feel able to come back to it, Tam. I think the ending is very satisfying.

AB76 wrote: "Since 2007, i have been a major consumer of journals..."

Literary mags: I like to look at any that come my way, but the only one I read consistently – if the excellent book section of the weekend WSJ doesn’t count - is the NYRB, which I think is a very superior production. I find many of the articles interesting in themselves, whether or not I would read the book. Others let me re-visit familiar friends. A recent one gave two full pages to a new translation of Le Lys dans la vallée. How wonderful to see Balzac properly fêted in a contemporary review.

Also - Critique of Pure Reason – Immanuel Kant. Having recently read about him in The Rigor of Angels, and seeing it there on the shelf at our rather amazing village library, I thought I’d test myself a bit by reading the original. Not sure how deep into it I’ll get. So far, it’s fine. Indeed, I’d say it’s easier to follow what Kant himself is saying than what someone else says he’s saying.

I’ve started on Len Deighton’s Bomber (1970), which does for Bomber Command what The Cruel Sea does for navy ships on convoy duty. It certainly draws you in to the dangerous lives of those brave men. It also shows us, as fully rounded persons, the German night-fighters, and the German civilians who don’t know yet that their towns are tonight’s target.

giveusaclue wrote: "Have you read any of the Inspector Wexford books by Ruth Rendell? They are good too and have been televised."

Thanks, giveus. Some good tips there. I knew of the Ruth Rendell books (often mentioned here, I think), but never did anything about it.

We’ve been watching the Dalgliesh series on TV with the excellent Bertie Carvel. I've never read any PD James but now I’m interested. Would anyone here know if the untelevised books in the series are just as good? I discovered yesterday that our village library has half a shelf of her books.

Tam wrote: "I think that this was gpfr's advice for posting photos here, if it helps. ..."

Thanks, Tam. That is exactly what I was trying to post.

I basically read anything Francis Spufford puts out, and Light Perpetual is one of my favourites.

AB76 wrote: "it says we have 246 members, is that correct? cos 95% must be ghosts, or are the 246 the people who moved here when the G shut down WWR in covid times? ....."

I'm sure that's what happened, and when it was possible to move back to the G, many will have just left their accounts here open.

Gpfr wrote: "I occasionally have a look at the comments and have seen that Russell has had trouble with my instructions,..."

Thanks, GP. I never thought to do a screen shot.

Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649-1660, a new history by Alice Hunt, was lively and workmanlike. It tells the story in 12 chapters, one year at a time, and it offers judgments, e.g. on the atrocities at Drogheda and Wexford: “that Cromwell purposefully oversaw a massacre of civilians cannot be safely claimed.”

The longest sections on particular themes were from the middle years – the unplanned seizure of Jamaica instead of Hispaniola, the de facto toleration of the Jews (who for decades had passed as Spanish Catholics), and the rise and oppression of the Quakers. These were well presented.

I also particularly liked the passages on the offer of the crown to Oliver, and the disintegration of the Protectorate under Richard.

I learned some startling facts – e.g. that several Levellers in the Army were summarily shot.

There was less than I was hoping for on political theory and religious persuasion, but perhaps I was expecting too much from a book I would rate as a very good introduction.

AB76 wrote: "he was one of many Protestant Irish writers like Wilde,Yeats, Shaw, O'Casey, Stoker, Le Fanu and others..."

I'm wondering if Shaw is another I should explore further. He was of course a titan in his day. I think now his reputation might be fading a bit in popular esteem (unlike say Wilde or Yeats) and perhaps even in the literary canon (no "and his World"!). I tried reading one or two of his plays years ago and found them not very...dramatic.

Robert wrote: "When Robert Peel became Home Secretary..."

Yes, I always thought Sir Robert Peel was a great man. The concept of policing by consent can, I think, be traced back directly to him. He would have a place in history for that alone, never mind Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Like AB, I’d forgotten about his work on criminal law.

Those uni courses sound good. At a rather lower level, I had the great good fortune that my A levels (English, History, French) all overlapped, so that in this particular connection I did Yeats and Joyce in English (fantastic - I still enjoy reading both of them today) and a lot of 19C and 20C Irish history in History (integral to Westminster politics).

As regards Synge I was happy to find and order a very inexpensive, illustrated HB biography by Robert Skelton in the "and his World" series, which will be all I need to get a good picture of his life - and some guidance on which other plays by him I should really read.