Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What Are We Reading? 16 Nov 2020
It's too bad that so many (here in the States) are so narrow-minded about newcomers and just know that they should be exactly like the natives from talking the language perfectly, to dressing 'like us', and of course be in our image a well. A sad commentary."I obviously (I hope) agree and I fear that it's really only gotten worse in the USA. I know quite well, roughly 300 foreigners living in the USA (mostly on the coasts, but some in Florida, Virginia, Utah, Arizona, etc) and I don;t of a single one who would say that they feel better off about their place in society now than say 20 years ago.
One of the incidents that really broke my image of the USA as a welcoming melting pot (utter bullshit in retrospect) was going out to dinner on Long Island, NY with my Indian roommate after 9/11. We got to the point where we just stopped going to certain places because we knew that he was going to, at best catch rude stares.
Lljones wrote: "Eels, anyone?The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
(Spotted on NYTime's 100 Notable Books of 2020)"
Ah. I found the first review (ordered by ratings) really illuminating. The reference to Japan in that review has reminded me of this gem of a Japanese film: Unagi (The Eel) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120408/
Alwynne wrote: "but 'pissed up' means drunk, sorry if it wasn't clear. "Binge-drinking is not such a big issue in France either.
The Renni Eddo-Lodge clause refers to the title of her book Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race and is basically shorthand for I'm not getting into this further...
Interesting assumption you're making here.
Alwynne wroteI've seen Eddo-Lodge's book staring at me from the shelves, and I'll have to pick it up to educate myself, but I would say that there are reasons why it could be applied to myself being a white person. Others within this conversation perhaps not but it would not be for me to say.
Alwynne wrote: "I'm not making an assumption about you as an individual, the discussion already involves a number of people, and this is an open forum not one exclusively for black/brown people to debate issues around race/racism....Is it not?"It is, you are right. The exclusive approach reminds me of Women Only clubs. I find it extremely sad and to some extent misguided (my opinion), but I understand why they exist and respect your position.
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Georg wrote: "I am not one of the many intellectual heavyweights on this site, a newbie to book reviews, my English is not as good as I would wish it were. And I am a self-doubter by nature."Geor..."
Thank you MissB for adding to the warm glow.
Tell me if you would rather be called Frances. I cling to MissB for auld laing syne :-)
Ah, yes, the Guardian. Wonder when poem of the week will be scrapped, or rather why it hasn't be scrapped already.
witness the Viner-filleting of the guardian culture pages.....whats next?
More of the Guardian's most boring columnist, Adrian Chiles? He only has 2 columns a week now, could easily be stretched to 5.
Or Tom Hunt, whose dire food column has many more critics than friends?
Or the "witty" (even if she is the only person who thinks so) Jess Cartner-Morley aka "a trouser, a jean, a boot, a sleeve..."
Lljones wrote: "Eels, anyone?The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
(Spotted on NYTime's 100 Notable Books of 2020)"
Surely not as mysterious as octopuses? Pity Carmen/Ruby isn't here to enlighten us.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "GLAUSER:Top recommendation Georg! Totally new to me, wow, i'm, excited and its in translation and print...win...win...win
I have a Durrenmatt lined up for mid dec but might move Glau..."
Lol...dont worry....it sounds right up my street, at my age i can usually tell what will dissapoint early on.
The poor guy had a lonely death, i remember reading a novel or memoir that suggested the blurry photo in the novel was of Walsers corpse in the snow...cant remember the book though
Paul wrote: "Alwynne wroteI've seen Eddo-Lodge's book staring at me from the shelves, and I'll have to pick it up to educate myself, but I would say that there are reasons why it could be applied to myself b..."
its on my TBR- to be purchased list, hope to read it sometime ahead
Gladarvor wrote: "MK wrote: "Today in France it appears to be a similar situation with (from my perspective) that Macron is being just plain racist."He's not my favourite person by any stretch of the imagination, ..."
His recent pronouncements regarding Muslim adherents as he hides behind the 'idea' that France is a secular country.
Here in the States we had a civil war more than 150 years ago, and some of us here have yet to recover from it.
France had a number of colonies not that long ago. I cannot the pictures of violence on both sides as shown in 'The Battle of Algiers'.
Calling all mathematician wannabes, check out today's Google Doodle remembering Benoit Mandelbrot. Love those Mandelbrot sets.
MK wrote: "Paul wrote: "Even here in Italy, I've seen the gradual overtake of Italian news/tradition to become more homogenized American. But with the caveat taht homogenized American is very often everything..."good points
my best example of the positives of immigration was a convo with a tamil taxi driver on way back from a painful dental operation. he told me he had no real education, a tough life and left sri lanka for his daughter, who was now 11 and top of her class, keen to go to medical school.i could see here we have a positive coming out of a negative refugee situation (tamils are not well looked upon in Sri Lanka)
Immigrant prejudice only sees skin colour and accent, it pays next to not attention to potential. On multi-culturalism i do feel that some cultures do find western "freedom" quite unsettling and that freedom in a neo-liberal context is the freedom to be exploited by rent payments, employment contracts and so many other things, alongside freedom of religion. The western dream is fragmented in the Anglosphere, with so litte govt interest in the poor
MK wrote: "His recent pronouncements regarding Muslim adherents as he hides behind the 'idea' that France is a secular country."If you genuinely think he 'hides' behind the very fundamental idea of secularity in France, then you simply do not understand what this concept means for us. The vast majority of French muslim people I know* in France are proud of that stance (including the letter written to the FT) and the position France has adopted re Charlie Hebdo/Samuel Paty/Erdoğan. People seem to conveniently forget the key difference between 'islamic' and 'islamist', in the same way they do with 'anti-zionist' and 'anti-semitic'. Interestingly France is accused of being anti-semitic for supporting the Palestinian people, yet anti-muslim for denouncing islamists, go figure. If you're attacked from both sides, maybe you are doing something right, who knows. I will leave it there to remain civil.
*Admittedly a biased sample, but these include very influential imams and thinkers of Islam in Paris.
Gladarvor wrote: "MK wrote: "His recent pronouncements regarding Muslim adherents as he hides behind the 'idea' that France is a secular country."If you genuinely think he 'hides' behind the very fundamental idea ..."
It suprises me how many people misunderstand "lacite", glad. I have been a keen follower of the french system all my life and i can see what it means but for the more multicultural anglosphere, it seems to be wilfully misunderstood
I can remember same issues back in 1990s
Multicultural as an arrogant idea of the anglosphere
I'm pro-lacite..
I just started a Joe Ide. Loved his first one, and this one has started well enough, but I’m booked into a cottage by the seaside for a week. It’s forecast to hose down every day. The perfect opportunity to get stuck into Lonesome Dove. It’s a tough life.
AB76 wrote: The poor guy had a lonely death..."All of us will have a lonely death. Even if you have 47 friends and family members at your bed side: you'll die alone, they'll live.
Maybe it is a relief to realize that.
AB76 wrote: "It suprises me how many people misunderstand "lacite", glad. I have been a keen follower of the french system all my life and i can see what it means but for the more multicultural anglosphere, it seems to be wilfully misunderstood."Thanks a mil AB. I'm a big fan of laïcité too.
The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello
This 1904 novel appeared in English for the first time in 1923, but I read the William Weaver translation from 1964, issued in 2011 by NYRB.
In reviewing it briefly, I am reminded of Anne Elk's Theory of Brontosauruses..
All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much, much
thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.
..in that, its very readable and gripping at its start and finish, but waffly and overwritten in its expansive middle.
Looking forward to a comfortable life due to the wealth of his late father in his youth, Mattia Pascal discovers his adult life to be a disappointment, his inheritance does not materialise, and he is working in a dead-end job and has a loveless and miserable marriage.
To his fortune, when he runs off unanounced to Monte Carlo, the folk of his home town discover a body in the local lake and believe him to be dead by suicide.
Its the new life that he settles into that is the tedious part of the novel, it could have been covered in a fraction of the pages. Though Pirandello labours the point, Pascal discovers that even though he is control of his destiny, his new life lacks the freedom it promised, he is more imprisoned than he was previously.
There's a sardonic tone to Pascal's narration that gives the writing a gentle humour, as cleverly Pirandello philosophises about the colour of the grass on the other side of the fence, and finds it is not always greener.
Andy wrote: "The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi PirandelloThis 1904 novel appeared in English for the first time in 1923, but I read the William Weaver transla..."
this defeated me,loved his plays and i love italian lit but i dumped this half way about a decade ago
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: The poor guy had a lonely death..."All of us will have a lonely death. Even if you have 47 friends and family members at your bed side: you'll die alone, they'll live.
Maybe it is a r..."
yes i guess i meant that death in your own bed is probably better than on a snowy hillside.....we come in on our own and go out on our own, of course
Gladarvor wrote: "AB76 wrote: "It suprises me how many people misunderstand "lacite", glad. I have been a keen follower of the french system all my life and i can see what it means but for the more multicultural ang..."apologies for my anglo-saxon spelling of the word!!
Gladarvor wrote: "MK wrote: "His recent pronouncements regarding Muslim adherents as he hides behind the 'idea' that France is a secular country."If you genuinely think he 'hides' behind the very fundamental idea ..."
I know I have an incomplete viewpoint. I grew up in Maine which which was something close to 98% white and the 2% other were Indians safely ensconced on reservations. My first remembered contact with discrimination was when I lived Germany and saw the attitude of some about the Turkish guest workers. Then it was to Northern Maryland where I saw such hatred rooted in skin color that I have since bent over backwards to give 'the other' perhaps more than I might. Because I grew up white in a middle-class household (house being owned), I have had advantages that others have not. At the same time, living in today's Seattle can be quite disconcerting as it has swung so far left that I am out of place here as well. It's a conundrum.
Pete wrote: "I just started a Joe Ide. Loved his first one, and this one has started well enough, but I’m booked into a cottage by the seaside for a week. It’s forecast to hose down every day. The perfect oppor..."Where's my Like button!
A clip from John Crace's piece in the Guardian today - Marcus Rashford becomes more of a legend by the day. Having already secured free school meals throughout the holidays until at least March next year – don’t bet against a further extension – he has now spoken of his newfound enjoyment in reading books and has started a book club for kids who might miss out on the pleasure of reading. Books were certainly part of what kept me more or less sane as a child, because I didn’t have many friends and reading was an escape into a world that seemed both more exciting than my own, yet also somehow safer. Like many kids in the 1960s I started off with Enid Blyton – I could easily knock off one of her books in an afternoon – before moving on to Biggles and Sherlock Holmes. My reading tastes were never that highbrow – I tended to regard Charles Dickens, George Orwell and Jane Austen as the sort of books that had been written to be read at school – and mostly I read thrillers or nonfiction. My bookshelves were full of Alistair Maclean, Desmond Bagley, Hammond Innes, John le Carré, Craig Thomas, Jack Higgins and writers like them. Including Len Deighton, who – like Le Carré – was a master of the cold war spy genre and his trilogy of Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match are still three of my favourite reads. Like many thriller writers, he did slightly lose his way once the Berlin Wall came down but his books were still always worth reading. And now I’m delighted to discover that his backlist has been included in the Penguin Modern Classics. So it turns out that all those years ago I was reading classic books all along. It was just that neither I nor anyone else knew it.
Now I have to put Len Deighton on the never-shrinking TBR list.
PS - For those of you in the States, Powells is offering free shipping (I expect not for items in faraway warehouses, but just the same . . .) for 4 days. Time to look for another bargain?
AB76 wrote: "Andy wrote: "The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi PirandelloThis 1904 novel appeared in English for the first time in 1923, but I read the William W..."
I instead loved Mattia Pascal when I read it years ago, along with One, No One and One Hundred Thousand and that reminds me that I haven't read a word of his since. I'll have to address that shortcoming next year
I have just heard that Jan Morris has died today. I loved her book on Trieste, she was often described as a travel writer, but, as she says, explaining to the Guardian in 2015 that while she had only written one book about a journey across the Oman desert, she wrote “many books about place, which are nothing to do with movement, but many more about people and about history”. Trieste is truly a fascinating place, being the only harbour held by the Ottoman empire, into Europe. It is both gritty and resplendent from many hundreds of years worth of to-ing and fro-ing from those from many nations and cultures. RIP Jan
Mod
Wow. Just an hour ago I ordered her Conundrum (NYRB sale!). I learned of Jan Morris from TL&S when I first joined, years ago, but have yet to read her work. RIP, indeed.
R.I.P., indeed, Jan Morris! I only ‘know’ her through her ‘Pax Britannica’ trilogy which I thoroughly enjoyed some years ago, but in her writing as well as in television or radio interviews she came over as someone I would have liked to have had as a travel companion or shared a loooong meal with.
Gladarvor wrote: "AB76 wrote: "It suprises me how many people misunderstand "lacite", glad. I have been a keen follower of the french system all my life and i can see what it means but for the more multicultural ang..."I really believe that that response is something typical of multicultural societies in the Anglosphere. Portugal is a country where the concept of 'laïcité' is less strong than in France and yet I'll bet that most people wouldn't argue with Macron's stance - especially taking in account the amount of suffering caused to the French by the promoters of islamist fanaticism.
Roger Deakin 'Wildwood' a journey through trees.It was so sad to turn over the final page of this much loved book.
Wildwood is a celebration of all living things, from the tiniest speck seen through a microscope to the thousand year old trees that hold tight to the ground beneath them. Roger takes the reader on his fascinating life journey with his intense curiosity of the world around him.
The journey starts at home, as many great journeys do, slowly circling outwards and then away, out accross the wide world, before returning to the familiarity of his beloved Walnut Tree Farm.
Almost every page contains a surprise, a nugget of delight, a fascinating observation, a 'something' that sent me scurrying to my computer straight away to find out more.
The journey travels accross the UK, taking in a charming and exciting account of his school botanical trips to the New Forest. Year after year the pupils would visit the same small area of the New Forest, building, layer upon layer, an impressively detailed map of the plants and wildlife there-
'Magnificant raft spiders Dolomedes fimbriatus, lived in 'great numbers' in Second Bog, and we observed how they would submerge, when alarmed by us, clasping little air-bubble diving bells like bright pearls for as much as 20 minutes at a time. We timed their dives with nerdish precision.'
Along with his love of trees he tells the reader about our ancient lands, and rituals, car building, artists, sculptors and so many more topics with the art of a top storyteller, keeping the reader wide eyed and enthralled by his words all the while keeping close to his theme of wood.
He travels accross Europe, then to their Eastern borders before he travels to the Tien Shan mountains of Kazakhstan, to delve in to the fascinating story behind the origin of our domestic apple tree. His next stop is the Ferghana valley forests of Kyrgyzstan to visit the abundance of fruit trees and the wild and beautiful walnut trees that grow at a height of 6000 ft in this unique microclimate. This is a stunning part of the world. These few chapters are wonderful and they are worth reading on their own. They are so fascinating, informative, and utterly delightful. A balm for the soul.
So coming back home the chapters speak of British topics like hedge laying and coppicing.
The final chapter is 'Ash' which is one of his favourite trees-
'I live beneath the protective boughs of a sheltering ash.... I love it's natural flamboyance and energy, and the swooping habit of it's branches: the way they plunge towards the earth, then upturn, tracing the trajectory of a diver entering the water and surfacing. In March the tree is a candelabra, each bud emerging cautiously, like the black snout of a badger, at the tip of every branch. Sometimes the ash will send out it's branches in florid, Baroque spirals for no apparent reason except exuberance.'
Roger died in 2007 aged at 63, a year after this book was published, so he was not with us to witness the destructive ash-die back that arrived in the UK with a vengence in 2012. I think it would have broken his heart.
If you are looking for some solace in this world, or want to be entertained by the wonder in our natural world then 'Wildwood' could be the place you escape to.
Alwynne wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: The poor guy had a lonely death..."All of us will have a lonely death. Even if you have 47 friends and family members at your bed side: you'll die alone, th..."
good point alwynne...
MK wrote: "I have since bent over backwards to give 'the other' perhaps more than I might. Because I grew up white in a middle-class household (house being owned), I have had advantages that others have not. At the same time, living in today's Seattle can be quite disconcerting as it has swung so far left that I am out of place here as well. It's a conundrum."Indeed. I think your instinct (to redress as much as you can) is the right one, but when it comes to that very specific issue in France, it is very much not a racist one (which is not to say there isn't a big problem there!).
It can be a conundrum indeed, I sometimes find myself falling on opposite sides of a given argument (race, gender, politics, etc.) depending on time, people and context. I do have a lot of time for 'wokeness' (although I truly hate the word), not much at all for the 'cancel culture' and the radicalisation of the discourse that are ancillary to it.
(Nice John Crace's article. Pre-covid, I used to love reading his Digested Week on Saturday mornings. The woke in me notices he's only mentioning old white men though, hey ho!)
AB76 wrote: "Andy wrote: "The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi PirandelloThis 1904 novel appeared in English for the first time in 1923, but I read the William W..."
I can understand why. It does drag a bit.
The Kings Collection of plans, maps and artwork from the British Library is like all my Xmases at once. Google images for maps can be a tedious rat-trap of watermarked copyright maps, poor in detail and hard to find but witjhin this collection on flickr i keep coming up with pure goldCheck the photo section for a map of 1739 Boston and Whitehaven in the 19th century(cant upload the huge files onto here sadly, so they are small versions) and just now, i found a map of 1780s Calcutta region and joy of joys a map of Berlin from 1749...1749...yes!
Berlin map link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/british...
None of these have come up in my detailed hunts for maps before(of course this collection was only uploaded in Aug-Sept 2020)
This is all from King George 3rds private collection via the british library, huge files sizes available to download from the site
Gladarvor wrote: It is true, France's attitude towards religion is difficult to understand from my anglo perspective. It seems less open than the anglo-saxon interpretation of the separation of church and state but equally subject to hypocrisy (i.e. headscarves=bad, what nuns?) and militarization.
Alwynne wrote: "Just to say - I think this is a general problem because the same thing happened with the last link to TLS that someone posted - the links related to TLS seem to just lead to the general TLS page"It works for me. It can be a bit unpredictable sometimes, so I'd say it's worth waiting and then refreshing the page. If this still doesn't work, try changing the threads into 'Threads: Expanded' (if not already) and refresh, this tends to help a bit.
And yes did lurk but quite honestly the only poster I faithfully followed was Interwar because I read a lot of the same kinds of books...
Ah, as we know now, there might have been more than one person reading the same kinds of books as you there!...
Slawkenbergius wrote: "I really believe that that response is something typical of multicultural societies in the Anglosphere. Portugal is a country where the concept of 'laïcité' is less strong than in France and yet I'll bet that most people wouldn't argue with Macron's stance - especially taking in account the amount of suffering caused to the French by the promoters of islamist fanaticism."Thanks Flinty. Yes, it does amaze me (cf Financial Times) how people can get this issue so fundamentally wrong. It's a bit too close to the bone, so I'll leave it there again!
Clare de la lune wrote: "Roger Deakin 'Wildwood' a journey through trees.It was so sad to turn over the final page of this much loved book.
Wildwood is a celebration of all living things, from the tiniest speck seen th..."
What a wonderful and heartfelt review! Thank you.
AB76 wrote: "apologies for my anglo-saxon spelling of the word!!"No worries at all AB! I was not sure whether I should use the word myself (although I am very fond of it), as it would draw attention to your spelling, which definitely was not the intention.
Paul wrote: "Gladarvor wrote: It is true, France's attitude towards religion is difficult to understand from my anglo perspective. It seems less open than the anglo-saxon interpretation of the separation of ..."
Paul wrote: "Gladarvor wrote:
It is true, France's attitude towards religion is difficult to understand from my anglo perspective. It seems less open than the anglo-saxon interpretation of the separation of ..."
France is quite unique in its seperation of church and state and also what the catholic french church actually represents. For centuries it was called the "Gallican" church and was quite different to other national catholic churches due to its very french identity. i think this changes in subtle ways the french relation to the church and state
However its full influence was gone by the times of revolution in the 1780s-1790s
Alwynne wrote: "Just to say - I think this is a general problem because the same thing happened with the last link to TLS that someone posted - the links related to TLS seem to just lead to the general TLS page."PS: Just in case you still cannot access the comment, here it is:
Yes, that is probably the cosmopolitan aspect of it that matters here.*http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/miles-hewsto...
There is a professor of social psychology doing interesting research on the benefit of mixing kids from different background in schools, including NI. Unsurprisingly, when they do, every one seems to benefit.
If people are more interested, he gave a broad talk here*, and his papers are here**.
**https://scholar.google.co.uk/citation...
I occasionally read about French politics, particularly in the NYRB, but would never dream of commenting on them. (From a feeling of deep ignorance about the nuances, mainly, but also because I don’t have a chien in that fight, as we almost say here in the US.) But I saw the BBC headline today, “France's Macron issues 'republican values' ultimatum to Muslim leaders” and thought that would be a good thing for Biden to do with GOP leaders.
Mod
I enjoyed her book on Venice very much.
Bill wrote: "I occasionally read about French politics, particularly in the NYRB, but would never dream of commenting on them. (From a feeling of deep ignorance about the nuances, mainly, but also because I don..."i am looking foward to Biden and the EU dealing out some home truths to Erdogun.
Turkey famously created its own secular laws under Ataturk in the 1920s, with the army as a secular bastion of the state, this has led to coups, aimed at restoring the Atataturkian system.
Sadly Erdogun has politically made religion a huge presence in modern Turkey and has been purging the system even before the strange failed coup a few years back
For me, secular states dont meant ignoring religion, its just has its private sphere (the home, the temple),. Erdogun is turning Turkey back to the 19th century
To think i once was cool about Turkey joining the EU...
Paul wrote: "equally subject to hypocrisy (i.e. headscarves=bad, what nuns?) and militarization"Hmmm. Headscarves (whether that of a nun or a hijab) = both bad, cross/Fatima's hand pendants = both bad. Of course, we're talking about the public sphere, so e.g. schools or public civil service. You can do whatever the fuck you want in your own private environment (including a convent; thank God - ah! - nuns/priests/monks do not teach anymore), the streets, the restaurants, etc.
As for militarisation, not sure what this has got to do with laïcité. At any rate, I am not super fond of our ingerence in other countries' politics (cf Middle East or Africa) although I do have a bit more of it when it is to maintain democracy (or fight extremism, cf Mali). Of course, this is never all so black and white (only look at Syria).
Gladarvor wrote: "Paul wrote: "equally subject to hypocrisy (i.e. headscarves=bad, what nuns?) and militarization"Hmmm. Headscarves (whether that of a nun or a hijab) = both bad, cross/Fatima's hand pendants = bot..."
i think a lot of the confusion with the Islamic religious system is there are no laws for seperation of church and state. So venerated Islamic clerics, steeped in jurisprudence, will correctly teach, within their own faith, that the system is not compatible with Islam, as it stands.
Hence the problem for immigrants educated in the Islamic way(which i am fascinated by and hold its teachings to be sacred), however within a secular system, it does cause offence, to not be visibly pious
AB76 wrote: "good article on laicitehttps://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/..."
Brilliant, thanks a lot for this excellent link. Funny that you should use this one in particular... (I'll leave it there). Sadly I'd also have plenty of links to provide, but all in French.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Unremembered Places: Exploring Scotland's Wild Histories (other topics)The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix (other topics)
Memoirs of a Porcupine (other topics)
Black Bazaar (other topics)
The Death of Comrade President (other topics)
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The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
(Spotted on NYTime's 100 Notable Books of 2020)