Ersatz TLS discussion
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What Are We Reading? 2 Nov 2020
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PaleFires wrote: "A scoop! I just poked around The G and found that Capt Slawko has whipped up his own one man campaign to bring back our blogs. It's below the Malcolm X book review which has nine hot comments and c..."My understanding of the words 'scoop', 'campaign' and 'whip up' appears to be deficient. At least I think I can understand the word 'man' in that context....
Georg wrote: "PaleFires wrote: "A scoop! I just poked around The G and found that Capt Slawko has whipped up his own one man campaign to bring back our blogs."."My understanding of the words 'scoop', 'campaign' and 'whip up' appears to be deficient."
..."
Oh for an uptick facility.
But seriously, will anyone at the Graun take any notice of our efforts?
Inserting a TLS comment BTL anywhere comments are open is a positive thing for us to do, but will it change anyone's mind?
Is anything more being done behind the scenes?
Is there anything more us Ersatzers can do?
Magrat wrote: "Justine wrote: "Reen mentions Mrs Smiling's 'perpetual search of a perfect brassiere' ...One of the things to be learned from women's fiction of the early and mid 20th century is about the horrib..."
Those early 60s tights were not much good for those under 5'2" They came up under the armpits and were baggy at the knee, but worth it for the shorter skirts .
Interesting article on Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson with the Pippi and Moomin stories:https://aeon.co/essays/pippi-and-the-...
@PaleFires:You were one of a handful of us who tried to make this into a 'campaign' (however futile).
You are very welcome to call me a bit thick: but I really didn't grasp your hyperbolic - and, to a degree, self-defeating - reaction to a comment that basically stated that Sleeping Beauty is alive' ("Long live the RG & TLS!")
@MissB:"But seriously, will anyone at the Graun take any notice of our efforts?
Inserting a TLS comment BTL anywhere comments are open is a positive thing for us to do, but will it change anyone's mind?"
What was good enough for Don Quijote is good enough for me :-)
Just started the third part of "Skippy Dies". Review will follow.
Alwynne wrote: "AB76 thanks so much for the article link."NP Alwynne, i recommend "A World Gone Mad" by Astrid Lindgren too, her wartime diaries
AB76 wrote: "Interesting article on Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson with the Pippi and Moomin stories:https://aeon.co/essays/pippi-and-the-..."Thanks for the link.
I read yesterday about Terry Pratchett being a fan of Tove Janson and the Moomins.He said that she was one of the best children's authors ever. His daughter read him Moomin stories when he was in the throes of his dementia and couldn't sleep. I got something in eye..
Georg wrote: "I really didn't grasp your hyperbolic - and, to a degree, self-defeating - reaction to a comment that basically stated that Sleeping Beauty is alive' ("Long live the RG & TLS!")"Sleepy Joe is alive too, and boy is he kicking!
PaleFires wrote: "A scoop! I just poked around The G and found that Capt Slawko has whipped up his own one man campaign to bring back our blogs. It's below the Malcolm X book review which has nine hot comments and c..."Not a campaign, just felt like making our voice heard. Ca mange pas de pain.
I'm about to go off for the evening. A new thread will begin tomorrow morning, and till then I want to read on in Pilgrims, about which I hope to comment soon.
Georg wrote: "@MissB:"But seriously, will anyone at the Graun take any notice of our efforts?
Inserting a TLS comment BTL anywhere comments are open is a positive thing for us to do, but will it change anyone'..."
It may not be about that. Sometimes it just helps to get that itch scratched.
I was wondering if the seasons of the year would make a good topic? We could post book suggestions and poems- I noticed that some members were reading Snow, others books set in spring and an autumn poem was posted - What do y'all think?Here is an autumn poem for remembrance day:
The Falling Leaves; Margaret Postgate Cole.
Today, as I rode by,
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree.
In a soft afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence,
For thinking of a gallant multitude, Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind, or age, or pestilence, But in their beauty strewed like snowflakes on the Flemish clay.
Greenfairy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Interesting article on Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson with the Pippi and Moomin stories:https://aeon.co/essays/pippi-and-the-... f..."
i loved the Moomins as a child and read Moominland Midwinter as an adult a few winters ago....it hadnt lost any of its charm and impact
Just a note to mention that I've posted a review of Leslie Fiedler's Waiting for the End. It's a 1964 look at the state of American literature, broken into two unequal parts: 11 chapters on novels and 4 on poetry. I don't have much to say on the poetry section, but I keep tweaking and adding to my comments on the novel section. Fiedler concentrates mainly on the influence of writers of the 1920s - Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald, and the rise of Jewish novelists after WWII. For a guy who was to foresee the endurance and popular triumph of Stephen King, Fiedler is surprisingly elitist in what literature he's willing to consider worthy of discussion.
PaleFires wrote: "Gladarvor wrote to MachenBach: Much obliged, I know this is asking a lot of you.That really made me laugh! I never experienced what you're going through, but I was much more likely to crack the s..."
That's a bit of a dangerous ending to a comment in these "woke" times. 😄
Salman Rusdie's The Enchantress of Florence, recommended by MarGar, deadgod and SydneyH in June, proves an absorbing read. I started reading this novel today, and am already in the midst of part two, of three parts all in all, despite a long siesta and various long phone conversations. In style, it feels very contained for one of Rushdie's works, if still dazzling.You might like the description of the court protocol for Akbar the emperor's access to books, as I did. This is the only protocol the young king did not want to put up with on his accession:
"According to the old ways, any book that reached the imperial presence had to be read by three different commentators and had to be pronounced free of sedition, obscenity and lies. ‘In other words,’ the young king had said on ascending the throne, ‘we are only to read the most boring books ever written. Well, that won’t do at all.’
Nowadays all sorts of books were permitted, but the three commentators' reviews were relayed to the emperor before he opened them, because of the overarching, supreme protocol regarding the inappropriateness of royal surprise."
@Justine: Looking forward to reading your impressions of Pilgrims!
@AB76: Thanks for the link to the Lindgren/ Moomins article! I also have Lindgren's autobiography here, and am very interested in reading it at some stage. (I have shirked reading it so far, because times just now are somewhat overwelming to me.)
@gladarvor: That document is impressive! Thank you so much. And I hope you will feel a lot better very soon.
@PaleFires: The poem you credited me with was posted by Tam... (it's easy to get confused here). Anyway, I agree with you.
Tam wrote: "I have a favourite mis-translation story [...] the Russian translator had quoted them as having said 'the meat is bad, but the vodka is OK'."I enjoyed that one, thanks! You could say it's better than banging on a table with your shoe (Khrushchev) ... and much funnier.
Tam wrote: "Though just a light piece of entertainment, the outcome wasn’t threatened, but in most cases of political, and personal negotiations, the outcomes do matter a great deal. Therefore, establishing a common understanding of the meaning of words is vital. Once ‘the ‘genie’ is out of the bottle’, it’s hard to go back. This is just the start, of a long power-play. It always begins with a transgression of some kind, and values are often called into question. The fight-back begins. In fact, you don’t even need words to be ‘ill-used’ in order to create a state of enmity.
For example, in this quote by Shakespeare’s Sampson, from the House of Capulets’, in Romeo and Juliet, it makes clear his threat to provoke his own household’s enemies, “Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it”. A provoking thumb is sufficient to kick off the whole sad story of love and revenge. So, this is really about the nature of ‘transgressions’.
All very pertinent in our own day and age, when ‘taking offense’ appears to be, by some, to be taking on an almost ‘professional’ edge of endeavor. Indeed, increasingly the ‘victim’ card is often played, as a means of shutting down unwanted opinions. Words are not just tools of understanding, for us humans, they can also be sharpened into weapons of war as well.
It’s hard to take back what has been said, so it’s worthwhile to remember that the meaning attached to the words often changes with time, and sometimes indeed it changes in no time at all! As Omar Khayyam said, and it is well worth us remembering his lucid wit, and his joy in living.
“The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” "
Thank you Tam, these are very pertinent observations. I might take another look at Romeo and Juliet these days.
On reading the poem you quote, I am reminded of a poem by Hilde Domin, which I post here in both English (bad translation from here: http://arlindo-correia.com/161005.html) and German, as I think you know the latter language:
"Not to be stopped
Your own word
who will retrieve it,
the living
a moment ago unspoken
word?
Where the word flies by
grasses wither,
leaves yellow
snow falls.
A bird may come back to you.
Not your word,
a moment ago unspoken
word into your mouth.
You send out other words
to catch it,
words with colored, soft feathers.
The word if quicker,
the black word.
It always arrives,
it never stops arriving.
Better a knife than a word.
A knife can be blunt.
A knife often
misses the heart.
Not the word.
At the end is the word
always
at the end
the word."
"Unaufhaltsam
Das eigene Wort,
wer holt es zurück,
das lebendige
eben noch ungesprochene
Wort?
Wo das Wort vorbeifliegt
Verdorren die Gräser,
werden die Blätter gelb,
fällt Schnee.
Ein Vogel käme dir wieder.
Nicht dein Wort,
das eben noch ungesagte,
in deinen Mund.
Du schickst andere Worte
hinterdrein,
Worte mit bunten, weichen Federn.
Das Wort ist schneller,
das schwarze Wort.
Es kommt immer an,
es hört nicht auf, an-
zukommen.
Besser ein Messer als ein Wort,
Ein Messer kann stumpf sein.
Ein Messer trifft oft
Am Herzen vorbei.
Nicht das Wort.
Am Ende ist das Wort,
immer
am Ende
das Wort.
Hilde Domin"
We read it in school and it left a strong impression on me.
Having just finished Blindness by Saramago, I've moved on to pick up Love in the Time of Cholera. I'd recommend both to those who haven't had the chance to read the novels, as both are remarkable, each in its own way. Will try to pen down a review for both of them, but need some time to digest first :)
PaleFires wrote: "Beg pardon, Booklooker - I just scrolled back, and I see s/he started his long post by quoting you. So I took the opportunity to re-read the sonnet you actually copied for us here. Ravishing poem...."
Oh, PaleFires, so sorry, I misunderstood. Really glad you liked the sonnet.
I do not perceive you as controversial and would miss you. Hope to see you again soon.
I can't say I feel comfortable here yet, either, by the way. Missing TL&S badly.
Also, it is very important to me that this feels open, not close(d).
I'm sure some other far more copped on, clued in person has pointed this out already but hovering over a person's avatar brings up an option to view that person's comment history, which I found helpful in tracking a particular conversation and you may too. If this was already evident to most of you, please gallop on by and spare my blushes, I have duplicated this comment on the help thread, perhaps only to duplicate my shortcomings.
Reen wrote: "I'm sure some other far more copped on, clued in person has pointed this out already but hovering over a person's avatar brings up an option to view that person's comment history, which I found hel..."Just assume we are not all more copped on, those who are won't be offended, and those who aren't will be eternally grateful
Reen wrote: "I'm sure some other far more copped on, clued in person has pointed this out already ..." Well, I've been on Goodreads for over 5 years now and I didn't know that (as an excuse, I haven't participated in any groups to this extent before). I see that, once I get the list of comments, I can hit "export" and it gives me a downloadable spreadsheet of those comments; perhaps someday I'll figure out some possible use for this feature.
PaleFires wrote: "Thanks very much to Booklooker for your kind words and to Reen for the EXTREMELY helpful tip. Catch you."Then I feel I have advanced the communal cause in some way. It just makes the navigation slightly easier and less heavy weather, as it were.
Bill wrote: "Reen wrote: "I'm sure some other far more copped on, clued in person has pointed this out already ..." Well, I've been on Goodreads for over 5 years now and I didn't know that (as an excuse, I have..."Ah, well Bill, you must be on the advanced plane! I get no export option but it's a useful way of checking if one has missed a salient point.
Mod
(And Bill):
You can only export your own comments.
Lljones wrote: "Reen wrote: "I get no export option..."(And Bill):
You can only export your own comments."
That'll be a great help to me when I'm writing the memoir.
Mod
:-)
(Others here have figured out how to use emoticons; not me, sadly.)
Reen wrote: "I'm sure some other far more copped on, clued in person has pointed this out already but hovering over a person's avatar brings up an option to view that person's comment history, which I found hel..."Very helpful. Thank you!
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Waiting for the End (other topics)The Quiet American (other topics)
Brighton Rock (other topics)
This Gun for Hire (other topics)
The Quiet American (other topics)
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Its well constructed and without adornment, this is life in a raw cocktail of reality.