Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What Are We Reading? 14 Dec 2020
Paul wrote: "I don't really understand the idea of posthumous honors or pardons. It seems like trying to "correct" history, but you can't undo death and I tend to think late-coming earthly recognition means lit..."Well, prizes. In my opinion, they're much overrated as indicators of value. Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar, but that hasn't prevented his work from being hugely admired long after his death - by academics and professional film critics as well as by ordinary movie watchers. I don't know enough about Le Carre to comment on what he might or might not deserve, but suspect his fiction will go on being read and praised and probably studied. I can't think he really needs a posthumous Booker.
Greenfairy (46) wrote: "I noticed that since the death of John le Carre, a number of people are of the opinion that he should be awarded a posthumous Booker prize - but the Booker never includes "genre fiction" which is w..."I think that was what pretty well what they did with Atwood, except she was still alive! As it happened le Carré explicitly said he was not interested in the Booker. And if the Booker never includes "genre" fiction how do you account for Wolf Hall?
PaleFires (56) wrote: "The presence of Lee Child on the Booker jury this year suggests that the apparatchiks have given a perfunctory nod to the idea that literary merit can exist in every genre of writing."You reckon? I think the brilliant Tom Gauld has nailed it.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/pic...
Added another book to my lighter pre-Xmas"read-load", "SARGEANT IN THE SNOW" by Mario Stern(1954), an italian non-fiction account based on his experience as an elite Alpini soldier on the Eastern front in WW2Stern was a 21yo Sgt-Major in the Alpini during the fighting in Russia, the Italians bolstered their original expeditionary force with winter fighting troops(Alpini). They fought well despite being deployed on wide open plains rather than mountains and Stern took part in a massive retreat that saved a lot of the Italian army in Russia
Regional dialects, polenta, letters to their sweethearts and the russians below on the river don, its a short but very literary account of this period of WW2. Heroism by italian soldiers has been given short shrift in the post-WW2 histories but its clear the Alpini were a brave, professional unit
Famously a young commander of the Alpini died saving his men by creating a distraction, he was a Waldensian (Italian protestant) from Piedmont...
Reen wrote: "I finally finished, inter alia, Cold Comfort Farm, which I found very witty and diverting in the way Flora herself might wish to have been diverted but it didn't give me the feels overall as a book..."I'm glad you enjoyed it. The characters have stayed with me, as clear as a bell, from what must be 50 years or so since I first read it. Though I must admit that I have only read it again, once, on a train to the south of France. My best friend from (boarding) school was very much like Flora Poste, very opinionated and immensely practical. She grew up in Singapore so maybe it was something to do with how the British ex-pat was formed in the embers of the dying of the British Empire?
Alwynne wrote: "For M. R. James's fanshttps://lithub.com/the-restless-ghost..."
Thank you for posting this! I've collected mezzotints for over 40 years so the MRJ story resonates. Well, they all do, I think because for me, growing up was bleak. I experienced many periods of living totally alone in different countries and cities. You get used to it, but there's a certain grey solitude that MRJ catches beautifully. Wonderful stories!
On cold war literature...Reading an english novel set in cold war Poland reminds how different the experience is with compared to native eastern bloc cold war novels. In these works,there is a lot made of the struggles and the staid repressive atmosphere but also a sense of life and what could be achieved, i wouldnt call it hope but its almost a mix of defiance and flickers of hope
The Ice Saints(Tuohy) simply highlights the massive gulf between the two worlds, in material terms. The main characters brother in law eyes her baggage with longing, the new leather ,the night dress she hangs on the wall, items that in 1960s Silesia are scarce or non existent. The society depicted is through a western lens staid repression becomes visual dismay in the pock marked buildings, grey streets and crowded two room flats.
Tuohy quietly unfolds a situation in his prose, the main characters nephew stands to inherit a solid sum of money but do his mother and her tell his father, a rather decaying professor of english and a party man....
NB> For Justine, i was wrong about the town being Krakow, its a small probably imaginary town near Krakow depicted in the novel
AB76 (65) wrote: "On cold war literature...Reading an english novel set in cold war Poland reminds how different the experience is with compared to native eastern bloc cold war novels. In these works, there is a lo..."
What you note is precisely what makes me often hesitate to read novels set in countries other than the writer's own - unless they are actually about the outsider's experience and don't pretend to understand the 'other'. Are Western visitors especially given to noticing poverty and bleakness, missing signs of normal life, forgetting that poverty and desolation exist even in their own wealthier countries?
Justine wrote: "AB76 (65) wrote: "On cold war literature...Reading an english novel set in cold war Poland reminds how different the experience is with compared to native eastern bloc cold war novels. In these w..."
Thats a good point, i remember my own long summer trip in Hungary and Czech Republic in 1995. It was lots of booze and teenage fun but i remember stepping back off the train at Waterloo, on a summers evening and first thing i noticed was the homeless, everywhere and the dirt and the dust. it was a shock, i had supposedly travelled into a area slowly recovering from 40-50 years of communism and had forgotten how dirty, unpleasent and unequal england was...
“The Brothers Karamazov” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve started a re-read, fifty-three years after the first. My recollection was that it took a hundred pages to get going, as the start was all tedious stuff about a dying monk, but this time I’m finding those hundred pages engrossing, everything so dislocated and unbalanced and impulse-driven, and every second character full of shame, and the brothers’ father completely abasing himself. Even as the narrator is taking the line “What were these impulses, it’s all so strange and hard to explain,” and “I’m not sure whether to believe this or not,” you feel the immense weight and authority of the writer.
I had kept my old Penguin copy all these years (bought new for 6/- it says on the back - 30p). I so wanted to look like The Student on the front. The urge to pick it up again came from an unlikely combination of (a) reading a great passage in Natasha’s Dance on the centrality of monasteries in Russian life, (b) seeing it discussed incisively by someone reading it for a second time at age 16 for heaven’s sake, on the beach in the TV Neapolitan Quartet, and (c) discovering it was a favourite book of my new favourite royal, Queen Mary.
I had kept my old Penguin copy all these years (bought new for 6/- it says on the back - 30p). I so wanted to look like The Student on the front. The urge to pick it up again came from an unlikely combination of (a) reading a great passage in Natasha’s Dance on the centrality of monasteries in Russian life, (b) seeing it discussed incisively by someone reading it for a second time at age 16 for heaven’s sake, on the beach in the TV Neapolitan Quartet, and (c) discovering it was a favourite book of my new favourite royal, Queen Mary.
Russell (68) wrote: "“The Brothers Karamazov” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve started a re-read, fifty-three years after the first. My recollection was that it took a hundred pages to get going, as the start was all tedious..."I, too, am finding it fascinating to reread books first (and last) encountered in my youth 50-60+ years ago. Even those I really liked (e.g.The Moonstone), I've tended to appreciate even more! I still wasn't bowled over by Brave New World, reread very recently, but I didn't hate it either, as I did at 17. I went through a Dostoyevsky phase as a teenager; maybe the time has come for a replay. Perhaps because I've read so much real drivel since those days, I have more patience with anything better.
Mod
6/- for 1 volume, no? I also have my Penguin Dostoyevskys from the 60s, The Brothers Karamazov was in 2 volumes - sadly I lost vol.1 somewhere along the way. I only read it once, also The Devils and Crime and Punishment, but The Idiot, ah The Idiot was my "favourite" book for a long time and I read it maybe 3 times ... Time for a Dostoyevsky re-read.
I enjoyed not so long ago Dostoïevski, mémoires d'une vie by his wife Anna Grigorievna Dostoïevskaïa.
Justine wrote(#69): "Russell (68) wrote: "“The Brothers Karamazov” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve started a re-read, fifty-three years after the first. My recollection was that it took a hundred pages to get going, as the ..."Every word you wrote resonates with me. Especially your last sentence "Perhaps because I've read so much real drivel since those days, I have more patience with anything better."
My library is closed from today. I have another month to read "Crime and Punishment" . The obstacles are a (imo) a poor translation and a book that is literally falling apart.
Therefore I am eyeing re-reads: The Moonstone is one. And Bleak House another.
Thanks for the recent recommendation of this lovely spritely book from Alwynne - 'The Nowhere Sky' by Marlen Haushofer.It was like opening a lucky-bag of fizzy sweets- Sharp but sweet.
In this delightful book Meta takes the reader by the hand and pulls them inside her young child's head to view the world as she does.
The story is set in 1920's rural Austria where Meta lives a comfortable country life with her strict but hard working mother, her adoring father, her baby brother, Nandi, and their gorgeous hunting dog, Schlankl.
Although Meta is a very bright child and can pick up the signals the adults send out, she is completely confused with what to do with them. A look, a tone of voice, words she doesn't understand, the obvious lies, she knows they mean potential trouble for her.
What Meta loves most of all though is a good story and fortunately her father does too. He can transform her days with his exciting minute by minute tales of his life as a soldier. In fact this is all that Meta asks of the adults that touch her world. To tell her a story.
In the summer there are a whole gaggle of visitors. Relatives and friends from the city as well as work colleagues passing through. Her favourite is mischievious Aunt Voley who shares a room with Meta, breaking all the rules that Meta normally has to adhere to: she stays awake at night whispering wonderful tales of past encounters and mishaps, giggling and bringing to bed bags of liquorice bootlaces to share in the dark. Meta is sure that - 'In reality Aunt Voley is a little girl who just happens to have taken on the sembalnce of an old woman. 'Her many stories are hilarious and she says - 'Life is one big joke'. And with tales such as these the two of them - Meta and the little girl disguised as an old woman - whisper themselves to sleep.'
She carries the reader along as she also tries to understand her material world too. Many of these things can be scary. She easily transports the reader to relive the unfounded fears that the young have of their surroundings. The woods, the nettles, the stones, they all speak to her, challenge her. She is also very afraid of the house, of it's noises and what happens under the cover of darkness. Despite assurances from her mother that Meta can switch on the bedside lamp any time she wants she is not so sure -
'But there is still the lamp - her brave little friend. And how the ghosts do hate the lamp..... and the ghosts are plucking at her bedclothes, and when she stretches out her hand for the light switch she discovers the lamp is dead. Then her enemies break out in shrill laughter and she knows this time her heart will truly stop....Yes this is surely what will happen. God will want nothing to do with her; knowing how wicked she is. He has given up on her entirely. She stretches out a hand to the light switch, darkness engulfs the light and she waits, tense and rigid, for the onslaught of horrors.'
And of poor Schlankl who is, once again, in trouble and waiting for a beating for racing off into the forest (well he is a hunting dog surely?) -
'The whole family trembles for poor Schlankl, why can't he be more rational? But then isn't she herself doing things she's not supposed to? She knows the urge that drives him out into the woods, and shares it; if she were a dog the farmers would have shot her long ago.'
Of her temptuous relationship with her mother -
'Mama will go on needling her, and she will get furious with her and want to tear her to shreds, and then she'll say something cheeky back and Mama will slap her. No, what she really would like to do is tear her mother to shreds, stick her back together again quickly and jump into her arms. But Mama clearly doesn't share this feeling; she shows no sign of wanting to clasp her chastened daughter in her arms.'
As Meta gets a little older her mother decides that she must no longer walk to school with the boys -
'From being fun life is suddenly grey and boring: the girls are useless creatures, they know no games, they don't climb rocks and they steal no beetroot. They do, however, know certain things that are quite astounding.'
And so as she starts to get a little older the light in the adult world brightens and the light shining in her childlike world starts to flicker and fade. She recognises that her relationshipwith the world is shifting and bids goodbye to her childish fantasies.
A unique little book, like a welcome gift, it provides an escapism from our adult world for a while and a delicious peek into what it's like to be a child again. And I very much appreciated Meta's company on the journey.
Translated by Amanda Prantera
Georg (71) : "Justine wrote(#69): "Russell (68) wrote: "“The Brothers Karamazov” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve started a re-read, fifty-three years after the first. My recollection was that it took a hundred pages ..."The Guardian Reading Group did The Moonstone a while ago - one of the few RG runs I was able to keep up with - and very enjoyable it was. For the Christmas/New Year season I have two book group choices: High Rising by Angela Thirkell and The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson (Australians, please note!) Currently still fascinated by Elmer Gantry. Although about a man from a modest midwestern background who studies for the Baptist ministry in the early years of the twentieth century, the psychology reminds me again and again of Boris Johnson, and to some degree also of Donald Trump. Sinclair Lewis supplies considerable insight into the workings of such minds and how they find success despite having no empathy or loyalty to anyone but themselves.
Tam wrote: "Reen wrote: "I finally finished, inter alia, Cold Comfort Farm, which I found very witty and diverting in the way Flora herself might wish to have been diverted but it didn't give me the feels over..."I think I felt there was a bit of Flora in me - I am both opinionated and practical (not as practical as Flora though, not by a long shot). I feel I damned it a bit with faint praise but I did really like it; it was an easy bedtime chapter but I was never dying to know what happened next...
Georg wrote: "Justine wrote(#69): "Russell (68) wrote: "“The Brothers Karamazov” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve started a re-read, fifty-three years after the first. My recollection was that it took a hundred pages ..."a very 19th century series of novels, should be a good xmas for you Georg, with those three classics
I recommend Wilkie Collins first novel, the excellent "Basil",less of a mystery than most of his later novels and suggested by a London Review of Books article to me in 2018
Gpfr (70) wrote – “6/- for 1 volume, no? “
You’re right. Vol 2 also 6/-. Still a bargain at 60p for the whole thing new, even at 1960s values.
All FD’s novels were overwhelming to me in my late teens. On a recent re-read “The Idiot” was stunning and beautiful. But Brothers K is coming up fast. The creepy Smerdyakov is so cool.
Thanks for pointing me towards his wife’s memoirs.
Sorry, haven’t yet got the swing of these italic “X wrote…” bits.
You’re right. Vol 2 also 6/-. Still a bargain at 60p for the whole thing new, even at 1960s values.
All FD’s novels were overwhelming to me in my late teens. On a recent re-read “The Idiot” was stunning and beautiful. But Brothers K is coming up fast. The creepy Smerdyakov is so cool.
Thanks for pointing me towards his wife’s memoirs.
Sorry, haven’t yet got the swing of these italic “X wrote…” bits.
Justine (73) wrote: "Georg (71) : "Justine wrote(#69): "Russell (68) wrote: "“The Brothers Karamazov” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’ve started a re-read, fifty-three years after the first. My recollection was that it took a ..."You will find The Getting of Wisdom good fun! There is also an excellent 1977 movie directed by Bruce Beresford and featuring Barrie Humphries as the headmaster.
Justine wrote: "The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson"I'm keen to hear your thoughts - no pressure.
Justine wrote: "AB76 (65) wrote: "On cold war literature...Reading an english novel set in cold war Poland reminds how different the experience is with compared to native eastern bloc cold war novels. In these w..."
i am enjoying the novel justine, its a great topic and fits into the Polish theme of 2020 for me perfectly
Alwynne wrote: "MK (19) loved the Carl Hiassen's I've tried and admire the way he manages to bring in environmental concerns without being too heavy-handed/didactic.SydneyH (20) – thanks for the reminder about t..."
i havent read any Braddon, not a huge fan of sensation novels mind you
thank you @Justine for bringing the Moonstone RG to my attention and thank you @AB76 for "Basil"Just read the G article on independent publishers.
Next to the headline: "Culture in peril(:) Publishing"
The irony!
Magrat (77) wrote: "You will find The Getting of Wisdom good fun!."Goody! Good fun is what I need these days.
Alwynne (79) wrote: "Review 
Mistletoe and MurderMistletoe and Murder is another in the series featuring Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells, teen detectives. It’s 1935..."
Thanks for this review. I know just the person who will love the book. She's no fool - an expert on contemporary China - but a enjoys a gentle escape into a bit of cozy murderr.
SydneyH (81) wrote: "Justine wrote: "The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson"I'm keen to hear your thoughts - no pressure."
Hope I can have a conversation with those who know Richardson's novels - probably after the New Year.
Russell (76) wrote: "Sorry, haven’t yet got the swing of these italic “X wrote…” bits.Doesn't matter! It's the conversation that counts.
Justine (89) wrote: "AB76: Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret is definitely worth a try."Absolutely as is
Aurora Floyd
Will respond to all this later hopefully.... going flying today!!
In THE ICE SAINTS, the author, Frank Tuohy cleverly negiotiates english and polish attitudes to their current cold war dilemmas. The English ex-pats in the British isnstitute or married to Poles, the Poles connected through academia, dissenters and conformistsIts set in April, that polish april where snow still lies on the mountains but warmer air flows in..
In the Guardian:The best books of 2020 to support indie publishers this Christmas
Some of the most outstanding books by small presses, from an extraordinary year
In other words: "These are books we couldn't be arsed to review properly, because nobody paid us. But as we are so invested in books and culture and independent wotsit thingies we have gone to the trouble to reinvent reviews: 18 books, one pithy sentence for each. We hope you appreciate the time, love and care we have put into this article."
A few coming up from me from this week's reading, a bit 'up and down', but a good variety.. In Every Wave by Charles Quimper
, translated by Guil Lefebvre, a short novella from QC Fiction in Quebec. At first I felt uncomfortable reading this, intruding on someone's grief. It is a very intimate and personal piece. But slowly, and this short novel demands being read slowly, the imagery and language Quimper uses changed the way I felt, and that it was intended to be shared, but only to those who can adjust to its delicate subject matter, and the frame of mind required.
It is not a novella to analyse by a reviewer in any depth, and much better approached without any preconceptions.
Enough to say that it is about a father trying to hold his world together after the tragic death of his young daughter during a summer holiday.
The Keep by Jennifer Egan
There's a twist towards the end of this book - don't worry, I'm not going anywhere near it - just to say, that though I respect it, I thought it deterred from the novel rather than added to it, and left me feeling rather short-changed, until then her hard work in building an atmosphere and gaining the reader's attention had paid off.
Danny, a New York wideboy, gets a call from his cousin Howard inviting him to the Czech Republic to help renovate a medieval castle, which he is turning in to a Hotel retreat. On arrival he is met with a number of mysterious circumstances; he can't work out why her in particular was invited, as they have a chequered history, and what of the murky 'futuristic' swimming pool, and the old Baroness that still lives in the Keep.
Even some brief descriptions of this novel give the twist away, so if it interests you, avoid them. Though I have my reservations about the last chapters, this is an interesting and thought-provoking piece of work.
Witch-Cult Abbey by Mark Samuels
1942, and the war is raging in the skies over Britain when an archivist of antiquarian books gets the offer of a much-needed job. A letter from Lady Caroline Degabaston takes him to Thool Abbey, in Hertfordforshire, to catalogue the Abbey's library.
Needless to say, things don't go the way he expects. He becomes nauseous on sight of the Abbey, his watch stops, he is left alone for many hours having gained entrance, her Ladyship is unavailable to meet him. Up until this stage, 40 pages in perhaps, nothing is particularly out of the ordinary, but rest assured, as the archivist begins his work, that is about to change.
Samuels writes in the style of gothic horror in its halcyon days, the thirty years either or so side of the turn of the century (1900). If at any stage the horror is of less interest, then the period details are.
It is an intelligent and highly atmospheric piece of writing that suits a dark stormy winter night, a comfy chair in front of a roaring fire, and a genrously poured Talisker..
and, Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon (read over the last couple of weeks, last thing at night..)
This is a much loved and much reviewed book, which I can add my appreciation of.
Rather than repeat the many fine accolades it has received over the years, I will just say a few words of why it stands out in the huge field of road-trip / travel books.
My interest was in how Heat-Moon managed as a solo traveller, as these days, that is how I travel myself. Rather than the historical aspects of the places he visited, I was interested in the people he met, and the relationships he developed with them. Amongst the reviewers, each seems to have their own personal favourite, mine though, with the Seventh Day Adventist.
In the Afterword he explains how it took him 4 years to chop the novel from 800 pages to 450. The problem in cutting it any further, which I think he should have considered, is that different parts of it appeal to different people. For me, I was really keen to know about his tough times, when he couldn't find a bar or company when he needed it, and how he coped. A minor criticism is that there are too few of these. But I am far from being an 'average' sort of reader.
Mach The only two literary Elizabeths that I have thought about so far are Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Elizabeth Gaskell but although they were contemporaries I don’t think the card is that old - don’t even know if cards were around then!
Mod
The best books of 2020 to support indie publishers this Christmas
Some of the most outstanding books by small presses, from an extraordinary year
In other words: "These are books we couldn't be arsed to review properly, because nobody paid us. ..."
To be fair, some of them at least have already been reviewed in The Guardian. Clicking on the title takes you to the review.
And a couple of other matters I was keen to relate..A sad day yesterday up in our parts.. (The Lakes/ Eden Valley).. with the funeral of Doug Scott, in the beautiful village of Castle Sowerby. For those who want to know more about his incredible achievements, I can recommend his good friend's book Everest the Hard Way (Chris Bonnington), about the first ascent up the south-west face.
Also, for those interested, World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2020
Mod
Elizabeth Bowen and Elizabeth Taylor?
Machenbach (95) wrote: "Hi AllBeen a bit busy of late what with rounding up the reindeer and slaughtering turkeys, but I hope to be able to post a few reviews before year end. In the meantime, some seasonal cheer from C..."
OK: Bowen to Taylor? (very odd image on card - is it a teeny-tiny book or a humungous candlestick?)
Georg wrote: "In the Guardian:The best books of 2020 to support indie publishers this Christmas
Some of the most outstanding books by small presses, from an extraordinary year
In other words: "These are books..."
2020 The year of the death of the Guardian taking books seriously....
Machenbach wrote: "Christ."Everything but... How does the saying go? "It's the birthday of Jesus - but you get the present!"
I am delighted by your and Swelter's curiosities.
And so so tired tonight. (Amongst many other things, a colleague has been ill for quite some time - not badly so, I am happy to say - and I have shouldered too much. If those horrid 80s shoulder pads would help, that would be quite something!)
I will regale you with the potato tasting scene from No Bed for Bacon should I feel less typo-prone again. Not quite a literary banquet, but funny, I liked it at least.
Just want to thank you all for the great mix of reviews, chat, and other contributions. I think this is doing well here.
I'm a pro-EU person, a hater of brexit and i remain suprised at how expensive good, thoughtful, intellectual books on the EU are. Any book, however brief seems to be around the £15 mark , am not sure of this is a sly brexiteer marketing plan for books about the EU but i remain obdurate that 200 pages should never cost £15LRB has a long essay on the EU by Perry Anderson this fortnight but i have to say it became a dirge at some points,written in a portentous manner it seemed like an attempt to cram too much information into 10 or so pages
Usually i love the long LRB essays but i found this one a drag, with some tiny bits of gold among the sand and cilica. Reading it gave me a sense of immense sadness that my rotten septic island is leaving the EU.
Its not that i worship the EU, i just had no problem with it and its mission but now this jingoistic rump of WW2 nostalgia obsessives will sail into stormy waters, by choice....sad, very sad
Bill (107) wrote: ""Sent by Ambrose Bierce to Mark Twain?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is quite entertaining, and it felt shorter than the pretty dreadful film adaptation. I wasn’t sure if this would be my thing, but the novelty of the text was worthwhile. The novel is a sort of horror narrative, in which the protagonist and his attorney, loaded on acid, mescaline, and ether, begin a wild bender in Nevada, a state where marijuana possession could earn a twenty-year prison sentence. Obviously, if any of the narrative is true at all, the writer is an absolute scumball. The book is frequently sinister and occasionally funny. Such as when Raoul Duke finds scrawled in his notebook “Kill the body and the head will die”, contrasted with the pair’s room service excess, when they “ordered everything into that room that human hands could carry – including about six hundred bars of translucent Neutrogena soap”. The writing isn’t bad. There are a few cliches, but the vivid first-person prose reminds me a bit of Martin Amis in his novel Money.I’m now turning to Naked Lunch.
Abe Books Most Expensive Books Sold in 2020, read this and decided on a rummage through my shelves..Unfortunately nothing quite so grand..
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A posthumous Booker for le Carre is a great idea – but don’t leave out other worthy writers who died without winning, start with recent ones like Charles Portis and Toni Morrison and then work backward, eventually getting to James Joyce and Charles Dickens. Can the Booker be given to an anonymous work? The author of Beowulf must be properly recognized by the literary world!
On an unrelated note, I’m currently reading A Rhetoric of Irony by Wayne C. Booth.