What Are We Reading? 18 January 2021

[Justine]

‘January brings the snow’ … at least I some places … and Pomfretian writes:

With the snow last week I dug out my copy of The Story of You by Julie Myerson . […] The Myerson is in my top ten books and I re-read whenever it snows. I've recommended it to many people but no one seems to love it like I do.

Nicole and Tom have two sons and are grieving the death of their toddler daughter. On a trip to Paris for a breather Nic goes for a walk and bumps into someone she knew when they were students. It's so much more than a trite "woman meets ex and has affair". It's about grief and love; family, marriage and motherhood; memory, guilt and regret. And I cry every time...

In case you're wondering why snow, well it starts with snow.

And this January 18th brings another quiz, Entitled Characters. Only 12 questions this time, with no clues (except the one about the titles) unless you complain, in which case I’ll add another. Feel free to have a go even if others have done so already: if you press ‘reply’ on the first comment you can skip all the previous attempts at answers. Otherwise, it discriminates by time zone. Answers will be revealed, or more likely confirmed, on Sunday evening when the quiz closes.

I’m happy to report there’s been some good red-blooded, if anxious, enthusiasm shown this week: ‘Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School was one of the best novels I read last year’, writes Machenbach

or best modern novels anyway. The problem is that the moment I attempt to describe it I’m bound to undermine any effort to make it sound good. So: yes, OK, it’s maybe a little autofictional or at least autobiographical. Wait! Come back, I haven’t finished. Yeah maybe it’s a little metafictional too, but not much. Will you SIT THE FUCK DOWN until I’ve finished please. Right, it’s also very discursive with not much in the way of dialogue or action. Quit wriggling will ya. And yes, it’s kind of about ‘toxic masculinity’ and the emptying-out of American political rhetoric, oh, and psychology. But it’s a very fine novel. Hello? Is anybody there? Is this mike on? Testing 1,2,1,2.

Yes, we're still here, Mach\!

And reen gives Elizabeth Taylor’sA View of the Harbour a fine report:

If you’re looking for a book where something happens, this will disappoint you, yet all life is here in this small harbour of squinting windows and revolving doors. Of the dramatis personae, the long-suffering Maisie, at her mother’s constant beck and call, was my favourite for her deep-running waters and stoicism.

Bertram Hemingway, old man of the sea himself, could easily have leapt from this book into The Sea, The Sea and joined Charles there for some mutual revelling in the sound of their own voices but there is kindness and loneliness in him too, so well observed by Taylor.

Glamourous divorcee, Tory, more shallow waters than deep, and writer and distracted mother, Beth, friends since their schooldays, now neighbours, are an interesting enough duo but both irritated me to the point of not really caring what their fates were. More interesting by far are Beth’s daughters Prudence and Stevie. […]

There are love triangles, squares even, to be had. There is humour and poignancy. You’ll know people exactly like the characters and you may even catch a glimpse of yourself. It is the most gentle of books that sort of creeps up on you and lingers. I have tried not to give any game away for those who have not read the book and if you do read it, I hope you enjoy it.

Of The Wolf of Baghdad: Memoir of a Lost Homeland by Carol Isaacs, Evan writes:

Shaun Tan's The Arrival meets Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Interspersed with prose testimony and reminiscence, this dialogue-free graphic novel about the author's imagined return to a Jewish Baghdad populated by ghosts is a moving reconstruction of a lost society, suffused with a longing for a home that never was.

Needless to say, I recommend it.

L'Affaire Arnolfini: Enquête sur un tableau de Van Eyck by Jean-Philippe Postel likewise receives the thumbs-up from Gpfr:

I have a small reproduction of this painting [The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434], bought years ago at the National Gallery, hanging in my sitting room. […] The book is described on its front cover as a "roman d'investigation". […]

Postel doesn't believe The Arnolfini Portrait shows a marriage ceremony. He strips off the different layers of the onion to give what I found a fascinating read.

And there's more medievalism from giveusaclue with The Alehouse MurdersThe Alehouse Murders by Maureen Ash:

This book is a bit like Cadfael in a castle in Lincoln as opposed to an Abbey in Shrewsbury. A Templar knight, missing one eye and with a wonky ankle, has got leave of absence from the Order and is lodged at Lincoln Castle whilst making his mind up what to do next. He has brought with him a young mute called Gianni who he came across scavenging for food, on his way back from imprisonment after the Crusades. On the eve on Lincoln Fair an innkeeper, a Jew and two young people, are found murdered in the tavern by the innkeeper's wife. The Templar, Bascot de Marins, is ordered by the owner of the castle, Nicolaa de Haye, unusually for those times a woman in a position of authority, to discover the murderer before King John gets into a strop about it. Quite a few red herrings along the way, but an entertaining, undemanding tale with interesting description of the city and times. And no, I doubt if you will guess the murderer.

‘I finished Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds this week,’ writes Cabbie:

Much has been written on its themes and the way the protagonist, Leila, reflects on her life whilst dying. I've also read mixed reviews about the second part of the book, which follows the mad exploits of Leila's five friends.

I rather enjoyed this episode of the story. It put me in mind of a scene in David Niven's Bring on the Empty Horses following the death of a director. The man's will specified who he wanted as his pallbearers, including the constantly hungover Niven, some hulk over six feet tall, and another who was under five feet. It was one of the funniest things I've read.

And who could resist MK’s suggestion?

Perhaps it is time for some light-hearted fare. I recommend Tarquin Hall's mystery series about Vish Puri, Delhi PI. How could you go wrong with a book entitled - The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (#3 in the series)?

If you like audio, as I do, Sam Dastor who narrates is extra special good.

On that cheerful note, I leave the thread open to you …

[AB76]

Morning all, chilly and still in the rural borders of Surrey!

Saw Bills' conspiracy theory query in last weekly chat and i have always believed that conspiracy theorists are insecure and need to find human agency in how the world works, simple chaos or chance is something they find challenging, everything must have an explanation. The theories re-inforce their beliefs that give them a kind of certainty, with the Trump situation its probably the weakest theory in living history(especially QAnon) but same basis, finding a way to discount chance and to give it a human element.

As for my reading:

Unknown Soldiers by Vaino Linna (1954)

....... is a superb mix of action, thought and reflection. Its not a gung-ho hero story but a kind of folk tale of Finnish character in the face of conflict, at no stages does it glory in victory or demonise the Soviets. Linna is a legend in Finland and this is a book taught in schools i think...

A Certain Idea of France by Julian Jackson

...the WW2 section i am reading exposes the vulnerabilities of De Gaulle's position in 1940, as at 49, he left France to escape the defeat of the Third Republic but also shows his strength of character to emerge from this test as a leader

Breaking News by Alan Rusbridger

,,,is a rather sad foray into the death of print, he is a rather over busy writer and never a favourite of mine but he was the editor of the paper i read for 20 years of my life

[Justine]

AB76 (2) wrote: "Morning all, chilly and still in the rural borders of Surrey!

Saw Bills' conspiracy theory query in last weekly chat and i have always believed that conspiracy theorists are insecure and need to f..."

It's interesting, in reading Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, to see how conspiracy theories rumbled along even back in 1964. A lot of them were about 'Communists' and were a continuation of McCarthyism, but perhaps even more influential were racist-inspired fears. At a Young Republicans convention in California, Ronald Reagan's speech against foreign aid for 'the purchase of extra wives for some tribal chiefs of Kenya' 'was received with delirium', according to Rick Perlstein. There was an undercurrent of ideas about 'Negro takeover' which led to segregationist George Wallace's primary victories in several Northern states. Anti-union conservatives used this to win over unionized white industrial workers.

A further depressing reality, shown by the examples of Paul's relatives and the QAnon 'meme queen', is that a high level of elite education doesn't necessarily help as much as we'd like to believe.

[AB76]

Justine wrote: "AB76 (2) wrote: "Morning all, chilly and still in the rural borders of Surrey!

Saw Bills' conspiracy theory query in last weekly chat and i have always believed that conspiracy theorists are insec..."

so true, i think conspiracies can draw in the desperate and the lost. people can find a cause to lift them out of hard times and that then leads to a blind faith in said cause, sometimes with tragic consequences.

[Paul]

Angela Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, ever so slightly fails to live up to the pants-dropping oddity its title would suggest it to be.

I expected a surrealist acid-trip of a book, what I got was an out of whack but fairly standard bildungsroman, one that owed a whole lot to Gulliver's Travels and Tom Jones. It follows Desiderio, the spy/assassin/besotted fool sent forth from a city besieged by the figmentary made real, to stop Doctor Hoffman's psycho-holistic mindfrig.

It was definitely a book of the 70s, lots of good chemicals went into its making. Carter's synaesthetic descriptions blended the senses, reality and the linearity of time, and when it stuck to this tack it was at its strongest striding alongside The Cosmicomics and Ursula K LeGuin.
But when it went to the Infernal Desires, it somewhat over-played its philosophic hand. It seemed to be a feminist critiques (for which Carter is rightly renowned) on the phallocentric eroto-ploys of The Great White Man's Club (Henry Miller, John Fowles etc). Carter spikes her erotic punch with rape fantasy and suggestions of gynandromorphy unsettling the whole set and making the erotic rather repellent.

It was not a quick read despite the low page count, simply because there is always an unsettling suggestion that Carter was writing a counter-narrative below the surface of the page and it was yours to detect.

I enjoyed it, it was weird, but in ways that I didn't quite expect. I was looking for Richard Brautigan with a feminist slant, instead I got American Gothic tripping on peyote buttons (there were even Houyhnhnms). Which is fine, expectations are there to be evaluated.

Next up: a favorite punching bag Jonathon Franzen's Freedom. It's been sitting on my shelf since my first kid was born. It's time to read it before he's old enough to do so himself.

[Lljones]

Paul wrote: "Next up: a favorite punching bag Jonathon Franzen's Freedom. ..."

Now that's something to look forward to - your review and accompanying discussion! :)

[Amelia]

I've started and abandoned about 8 different books in the last few weeks (none of them bad, I just haven't had the motivation to read them), so I'm glad I finally finished Detransition, Baby this weekend.

Most of the characters' lives are kind of a mess, for one reason or another, and none of them are the type to apologise for it. Reece, who sees herself as a bit of a 'trans elder' by surviving to early thirties can be kind of a bitch - she thinks of the funerals she goes to as social events and has no patience for 'baby trans' - I liked her a lot.

Reese is self-destructing, but desperate to be a mother. Ames, recently detransitioned (and Reese's ex) has an affair with his boss and gets her pregnant. Katrina is a late thirties divorcee left a marriage that was based more on what society expected of her than any real desire or connection, and now she's pregnant.

The action in the book unfolds non-sequentially, with chapter headings giving the time pre- or post-conception. There is a lot of dark humour here, as well as frank commentary on being trans, sex, and various types of privilege (at times maybe too much commentary, but to Peters' credit, most of it comes naturally from the experiences of the characters).

I found the book easy to read & enjoyable (and now I really need to edit the review I left on GR because I wrote it at 1.30am and it's a bit incoherent)

[Amelia]

Paul wrote: "Angela Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, ever so slightly fails to live up to the pants-dropping oddity its title would suggest it to be.

I expected a surrealist acid-trip ..."

Ah, a shame. Although, perhaps the title is just too good (too bizarre?), and sets the bar too high!

I got Franzen's tome from a book swap at my local station, it took up space unread for years before I re-donated it. Maybe one day I'll get round to it/him.

[AB76]

Amelia wrote: "I've started and abandoned about 8 different books in the last few weeks (none of them bad, I just haven't had the motivation to read them), so I'm glad I finally finished [book:Detransition, Baby|..."

oh dear,,,,8 abandonments, i can feel your fustrations, clearly a motivational issue but it can happen to any of us

[AB76]

Justine wrote: "AB76 (2) wrote: "Morning all, chilly and still in the rural borders of Surrey!

Saw Bills' conspiracy theory query in last weekly chat and i have always believed that conspiracy theorists are insec..."

i must read that Goldwater book, my previous xperience of him was reading "The Making of The President 1964" one of Theodore Whites series and then i read and disliked Goldwaters book "the conscience of a conservative"(mainly cos i am not a conservative lol)

I have read 1960, 1964 and 1968 of White's books, with diminishing returns sadly, i aim to read 1972 at some point

[AB76]

On...the union jack

Brexit and these long five years have totally killed any moderate interest i had in flags and Britishness or Englishness. I find the visions of our little englander tory government on tv with union jacks festooned behind them rather distasteful and cheap, like our poundland union is something to celebrate.....

I've always been fairly proud to be english but since 2016 and brexit, i immensely dislike any references to nationalism and jingoism. The sad chorus of jibes about being first to get a vaccine was another nail in that coffin for me

[scarletnoir]

Paul wrote: .." I got American Gothic tripping on peyote buttons (there were even Houyhnhnms).

Are those related to the Doctor in Steve Martin's unforgettable The Man with two Brains?

Next up: a favorite punching bag Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. It's been sitting on my shelf since my first kid was born. It's time to read it before he's old enough to do so himself.

I quite like Franzen - at least, he's entertaining (no small praise, nowadays). He's actually pretty good, thought probably not as good as he thinks he is - is that what you hold against him? I'd be interested to know the specifics of your aversion!

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: oh dear,,,,8 abandonments, i can feel your fustrations, clearly a motivational issue but it can happen to any of us...

8 is a lot - when I have a bad run, my go-to solution is pretty simple - pick one out from an author I know will at the very least be readable. I've had a couple of dicey ones myself, recently, so may well pick up another Elmore Leonard soon...

[scarletnoir]

AB76wrote:..."then i read and disliked Goldwaters book "the conscience of a conservative"

I thought the whole point of being a Conservative was not to have a conscience? To stand up for a continuation of the status quo, privilege, 'take from the poor to give to the rich' (via taxation and its evasion) etc.

Perhaps I missed something!

[Paul]

scarletnoir wrote: "

Are those related to the Doctor in Steve Martin's unforgettable The Man with two Brains?"

Dear Sweet God, you have read my mind and it's freaking me out. The closing scenes, in Doctor Hoffman's laboratories The Main With Two Brains was running through my head. I was waiting for Merv Griffin to show up with a syringe full of Windex

[Paul]

scarletnoir wrote: "I quite like Franzen - at least, he's entertaining"
I don't necessarily have a problem with Franzen's writings, I liked The Corrections fairly well. He's just tiring, in that his book awakens the FRANZEN kraken, and a discussion about the literary merits of his writing becomes overtaken by the fact that he has the personality of plantar fasciitis. It's almost to the point of hiding your Franzen novel in a copy of Hustler to avoid the stares.

[Bill]

Justine wrote: "It's interesting, in reading Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, to see how conspiracy theories rumbled along even back in 1964."

I just read in A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 about the 1911 Beiliss case in Russia in which the prosecution pushed a murder case against a man authorities, from the prosecutors up to the Tsar, knew was innocent in order to justify the “blood libel” charges that fed into the antisemitic conspiracy the nobility was using to delegitimize the advocates of liberalization. (In a case of semi-ironic justice, the accused was eventually acquitted and died in the US in 1938; the actual instigator of the murder was killed by Bolsheviks in the early years of the revolution).

In my reading, conspiracy theories were regularly spread in to Elizabethan England and colonial America; some in the early American Republic spread rumors of a conspiracy threat involving the Bavarian Illuminati (which I think may have inspired Charles Brockden Brown's unfinished Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist).

I recall hearing in the 1960s that fluoridation of our drinking water was going to have catastrophic but hard-to-pin-down effects on Truth, Justice, and the American Way (or was it Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie?)

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76wrote:..."then i read and disliked Goldwaters book "the conscience of a conservative"

I thought the whole point of being a Conservative was not to have a conscience? To stand up for a continua..."

i suppose conservatives can fool themselves by delving into what Adam Smith really meant by "trickle down" and have a consience but the post 1979 Thatcher-Reagen shift has crushed a lot of the more left wing conservative movements in thought

i have Jesse Normans book on Adam Smith lined up but hadnt realised he was paid up Tory MP. i will still read it but with less relish

i think Adam Smith fully meant mercantile capitalism to be supportive of the less needy but probably was too idealistic regarding what profit and loss to private business actually means

Back on guardian TLS i commented how William Cobbett decried the dissolution of the monasteries as they removed the crucial relief support that local abbeys delivered to the poor and the needy. This support network was never replaced after the events by anything equable. Poor Laws/Corn Laws/Workhouses all failed their basic task and it wasnt until the 20th century that some kind of welfare was finally introduced

So to conclude, Adam Smith was a post-dissolution economist, educated and teaching in a nation that had very little official state support for the poor and the needy, in a time when protestant mercantile capitalism was booming. i wonder what he would have written if he had lived around 1500-1520?

[AB76]

Paul wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I quite like Franzen - at least, he's entertaining"
I don't necessarily have a problem with Franzen's writings, I liked The Corrections fairly well. He's just tiring, in that h..."

i think thats the first mention of Hustler on this pages Paul...lol

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: oh dear,,,,8 abandonments, i can feel your fustrations, clearly a motivational issue but it can happen to any of us...

8 is a lot - when I have a bad run, my go-to solution is pretty ..."

i think my worst run was 2-3 books abandoned at same time but not down to motivation, just irritation with the topics and i quickly found something else, was a few years back

[Andy]

I may scream at the Aussies for their cricketing exploits, but there currently is one thing they are doing well, their horror writing.
In particular two young women writers. Kaaron Warren's Into Bones like Oil which was one of my favourite novels of last year. And now this, Kathleen Jennings's Flyaway, another novella, and a debut also.
Jennings's book may not be quite as good as Warren's, but I say that in a good way - its got weird elements that require some careful reading.. Indeed, part of its strength is, that it is very different.
19 year old Bettina Scott lives a quiet life with her mother in the rural town of Runagate, when her routine is disrupted by strange happenings and an anonymous letter which brings up painful memories of her father and brothers that disappeared three years previously.
There's an 'Angela Carter fairy tale' feel to the book, though it is its own thing, Carter brought into the 2020s perhaps.. There's a strong link to the environment and wilderness, through the references to the unique flora and fauna of the area, and the deft handling of folklore. The combination of beauty and the tangible sense of magic and otherworldliness make this a memorable piece of work.
Its really exciting when a young author like Jennings emerges with such a wonderful debut.. what will she come up with next?

[Georg]

Justine wrote (3):A further depressing reality, shown by the examples of Paul's relatives and the QAnon 'meme queen', is that a high level of elite education doesn't necessarily help as much as we'd like to believe.

My sister and b-i-l: sensible, well educated, politically left/green leaning, well informed (until recently). Never showed any tendency to follow any kind of belief system. Financially well off, stable relationship, two well adapted kids in their early 20s.

They are not yet at the QAnon level. They started as Covid-sceptics, Then they marched with the lock-down protesters. Now both have more than a foot already in the general conspiracy theorist's camp. It will only be a matter of time....

I have tried to argue. Mainly by questioning their beliefs. I have been uncharacteristically (for me) disciplined: no sarcasm, no accusations, nothing personal at all. There were points, where I thought I had made some ground. A day later I got more undigested propaganda delivered to my mailbox.
After three months I am throwing in the towel. I might as well argue with religious or political fanatics.

I feel not only depressed, but also distressed.

I've done quite a bit of reading to find explanations. I've learned a lot, I haven't found any answers.

Cugel could probably suggest some further reading...
Have been eyeing "The Intelligence Trap" by David Robson. Has anybody here read it?

[scarletnoir]

Paul wrote:...a discussion about the literary merits of his writing becomes overtaken by the fact that he has the personality of plantar fasciitis.

Well, I am in the fortunate - or maybe unfortunate - position of knowing absolutely nothing about Franzen's 'personality'... I have never seen an interview, and don't recall reading one in print - perhaps not surprisingly!

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote:'I suppose conservatives can fool themselves by delving into what Adam Smith really meant by "trickle down" and have a conscience but the post 1979 Thatcher-Reagen shift has crushed a lot of the more left wing conservative movements in thought.

I've heard of this so-called 'trickle down effect', but in practice, there is little if any evidence that it exists outside the fevered imagination of a few long-dead right-wingers. Indeed, research has shown that the poor (or not rich, anyway) make far more generous contributions to charity than the rich (as many reports confirm), for example:
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/new...

All this reminds me of Margaret Thatcher's attempt to re-write the parable of the good Samaritan as: "If he wasn't rich, he would not have been in a position to help." Laughable stuff, I think... in an absolute first for me (and probably a last) here is a deconstruction of Thatcher's viewpoint from a Jesuit theologian:
https://www.americamagazine.org/conte...

[Justine]

Georg (22) wrote: They started as Covid-sceptics" That's an amazing, and depressing, story. I always want to ask Covid-sceptics (not that I know any) whether they also disbelieve in cancer, influenza, TB, Aids, etc. I mean, why Covid? It's a disease, caused by a virus studied by the same sorts of scientists in the same sorts of labs. So what's the problem here?

It's the same with climate change and evolution. People who accept the same sort of expert opinion in other areas of science, suddenly know better in one or two specific fields - without bothering to undertake any scientific study of those areas for themselves.

[Bill]

scarletnoir wrote: "Well, I am in the fortunate - or maybe unfortunate - position of knowing absolutely nothing about Franzen's 'personality'... I have never seen an interview, and don't recall reading one in print - perhaps not surprisingly!"

I’m a big advocate of not knowing much if anything about the fiction authors I read - almost impossible with contemporary authors who are encouraged to go for massive traditional and social media exposure if they expect to have any career at all. But in the case of Franzen, I’d say you’re missing out on his greatest literary creation: the solipsistic, social-media-averse, self-sabotaging author Jonathan Franzen. But if you enjoy his novels (I don’t, though I've only read The Corrections), it’s probably better to keep on doing what you’re doing.

[Veufveuve]

@Machenback - adequately well would sum it up perfectly. Fat and bored.

[CCCubbon]

Georg

I wonder why we assume that those we consider smart, well educated people cannot make foolish conceptual errors and hold irrational beliefs.
Maybe because we expect them to be wiser but they are really just like the rest of us with sometime silly thoughts. I bet even Einstein had his moments and I know Isaac Newton wrote volumes about alchemy in which he believed firmly.

A long time ago I tried to befriend a lady who believed absolutely that she had insects crawling constantly through her hair and head. She didn’t but nothing would persuade her otherwise and then one could only be kind. This may not be an intellectual example but still a variation of a fixed idea.

One cautionary word would be to remember how Galileo was treated , spending years under house arrest for for saying that the earth went round the sun heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture" or the derision experienced by those who said that the world was not flat, you could not fall off the end.
This is not to say that conspiracy theorists are correct simply that people, clever or not , hold irrational ideas at times. Once, during a teacher training class I asked a respected lecturer ‘My mother-in-law fills my children’s heads with nonsense. How do I combat this in a class?’
‘You know better, quietly, in a non- confronting manner will eventually put things right’
I don’t know if that’s rather wishful but in the end, quietly, in a non-confronting way they lady with insects in her head recovered.

[Justine]

CCCubbon wrote: "I wonder why we assume that those we consider smart, well educated people cannot make foolish conceptual errors and hold irrational beliefs.
Maybe because we expect them to be wiser but the..."

The reason I highlighted this issue is because we often point to the need for 'better education' as a means of improving scientific and political understanding and rational thinking skills. The poor woman who thought her head was infested with insects only deluded herself about herself, she wasn't, like Fox News, QAnon or some high-ranking politicians convincing millions of people that a legitimate national election was stolen, that one of the two major political parties is a pedophile cult, that a pandemic killing thousands in their own country is either nonexistent or caused by G5. I can't imagine how to solve that non-confrontationally, or indeed any other way. But I'm open to suggestions.

[Bill]

Justine wrote: "I always want to ask Covid-sceptics (not that I know any) whether they also disbelieve in cancer, influenza, TB, Aids, etc. I mean, why Covid?"

One difference I’d note is that acknowledging COVID and climate change justifies significant, collective behavioral change across society, which is what I think these people are actually resisting. The other diseases may indicate personal lifestyle changes, but these are not by any means undertaken by all the people who nevertheless accept that these diseases exist. Evolution is slightly different, but for those who resist it acceptance would entail abandoning personally or culturally long held religious certainties.

[Lljones]

CCCubbon wrote: "A long time ago I tried to befriend a lady who believed absolutely that she had insects crawling constantly through her hair and head...."

I believe that is a known mental disorder, though I can't think of the name of it. It's similar to 'Morgellons' (something my beloved Joni Mitchell suffered from at one time).

Delusional parasitosis.

[Lljones]

I'm a nervous wreck, glued to the TV and wondering what more we'll endure in the next 48 hours. While fixing breakfast earlier, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the egg timer went off.

[CCCubbon]

Justine
Yes, that’s the bigger problem. I was thinking about individuals, Georg’s relations believing conspiracy theories.
One could argue for the curtailment of organisations spreading these theories as is happening now with some social media but then I do not feel comfortable with limiting free speech.
I don’t believe that there is any answer except to deny and present the truth and time.

[Bill]

Lljones wrote: "I'm a nervous wreck, glued to the TV and wondering what more we'll endure in the next 48 hours. While fixing breakfast earlier, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the egg timer went off."

Got the jitters?

[MK]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: oh dear,,,,8 abandonments, i can feel your fustrations, clearly a motivational issue but it can happen to any of us...

8 is a lot - when I have a bad run, my go-to solution is pretty ..."

I'm on ration! During this dreary time, I have managed to complete my paperback collection of Brother Cadfael mysteries. Each month after the 15th I allow myself the luxury of picking up the next one in the series. As I write, I am just a tad more than half-way through #16. The Heretic's Apprentice I have figured out that - this way - I will finish the series in June.

Then, I have my fingers crossed that between having Joe Biden in charge of especially vaccine distribution and the warmer weather, we will be able to move about more freely. (I have just ordered travel brochures from the Oregon tourist folks.) Or by then I will be truly ready for the 'funny farm.'

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote:'I suppose conservatives can fool themselves by delving into what Adam Smith really meant by "trickle down" and have a conscience but the post 1979 Thatcher-Reagen shift has crushed a lo..."

yes, the contribution of the wealthy to any cause is usually small beer in terms of a % of their wealth.

[giveusaclue]

Justine wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I wonder why we assume that those we consider smart, well educated people cannot make foolish conceptual errors and hold irrational beliefs.
Maybe because we expect them to be wis..."


Well there was the famous case of the pedophile himself Nick who accused half of the government of pedophilia and even murder. There were plenty of people more than happy to believe him because it was the Tories he was accusing!

[AB76]

Bill wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I'm a nervous wreck, glued to the TV and wondering what more we'll endure in the next 48 hours. While fixing breakfast earlier, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the egg timer wen..."

i wish they would do it indoors, the washington weather is grim in Dec-Feb and we dont want Biden getting ill, it would also give much more control to the event but i also know its a showpiece of american political theatre and therefore would be diminished indoors

Unless i'm wrong and its indoors anyway?

[MK]

Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Well, I am in the fortunate - or maybe unfortunate - position of knowing absolutely nothing about Franzen's 'personality'... I have never seen an interview, and don't recall rea..."

#26 - I don't pay much attention to author's personalities either. My exception is when they make the news for what I deem - BAD BEHAVIOR! When that happens, they go on a pretty short list of, I won't touch a book by this author. Susan Hill is on that list after she made unwarranted accusations in an interview where she announced the cancelation of her appearance at the Book Hive, a perfectly nice independent bookshop in Norwich. (Google--Susan Hill Book Hive)

After all there are so many more authors and books out there that I want to read. Why mess up my life when time is of the essence?

[giveusaclue]

MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: oh dear,,,,8 abandonments, i can feel your fustrations, clearly a motivational issue but it can happen to any of us...

8 is a lot - when I have a bad run, my go-to..."

Look for these - I am sure you will enjoy them:

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/an...

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/ma...

[Lljones]

AB76 wrote: "Unless I'm wrong and its indoors anyway?
..."

Not yet, Biden continues to say no, but that could still change. Today the FBI is 'vetting' 25,000 National Guard troops, worried about insider attacks.

[Hushpuppy]

@Paul Fucking hell, what a nightmare, I am truly sorry to hear about having to deal with this (and Georg too). As you say, being educated and rational is not sufficient in itself to protect against cultish beliefs, although it does help to some extent. There has to be some fragility somewhere, whereby the whole system can topple over if brought under stress (say a combination of our crazy covid world and increased isolation). It probably gives you a sense of agency and control, of belonging, of understanding better than anyone else a world that, frankly, does not make much sense.

I have linked to at least one of these before, but these can be very useful to read, and full of relevant scientific links too.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/b...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/b...
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/... And then of course, there's this chilling report on how people help create those delusions: https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...

Unfortunately, as Georg says, they help understand a bit how this may come about, not how to combat these effectively. This one does a bit better by the end: https://theconversation.com/why-peopl...

[Bill]

On Twitter now - no doubt a more copy-and-paste friendly version will be available soon - a list of the statues to be erected in The Garden of American Heroes.

I'm a lifelong Pennsylvanian, we love Quakers here, and not just for their oatmeal, but George Fox as an American hero?

At least honorary American Winston Churchill isn't included.

[AB76]

Bill wrote: "On Twitter now - no doubt a more copy-and-paste friendly version will be available soon - a list of the statues to be erected in The Garden of American Heroes.

I'm a lifelong Pennsylvanian, we lo..."

Its impressive the USA had two Quaker presidents, they are an interesting group, worked as a sailing instructor in my late teens, one of my colleagues was a Quaker. Would quietly leave the centre to attend the local meeting house, then return and play his digeridoo...

[Hushpuppy]

AB76 wrote (#44): "worked as a sailing instructor in my late teens"

I think I've missed this if you've said it before! On what kind of boat?

[Georg]

CCCubbon wrote (28): "Georg

I wonder why we assume that those we consider smart, well educated people cannot make foolish conceptual errors and hold irrational beliefs.
Maybe because we expect them to be wiser but the..."

I am floundering.
There is the cognitive dissonance.
But I think I am even more disturbed by the ethical one.
This is my sister who was inconsolable when a fledgling she brought home didn't survive. Now she supports the Great Barrington Declaration. I have tried so hard to make her see that the people who die are human beings, individuals, not mere numbers on paper.
I failed on both accounts: the rational as well as the emotional.

Apart from my personal grievance: why is there no public discussion about ethics?

[Justine]

AB76 (44) wrote: "Its impressive the USA had two Quaker presidents.."

Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon ... hm ... not the most inspiring examples ...

[Justine]

Bill (30) wrote: "Justine wrote: "I always want to ask Covid-sceptics (not that I know any) whether they also disbelieve in cancer, influenza, TB, Aids, etc. I mean, why Covid?"

One difference I’d note is that acknowledging COVID and climate change justifies significant, collective behavioral change across society, ..."

Good points.

[Max (Outrage)]

@Lljones (31)
Funny you should mention Joni. I haven't really listened to her for a couple of years and this afternoon I've been playing and obsessing over 'Marcie'. Such a lovely, clever song.

[CCCubbon]

Georg asked ‘ why is there no public discussion about ethics

Maybe it’s simply too hard, Georg.
Sometimes a discussion about ethics may find some clarity or a small point of agreement amongst different views. People often want to have one ‘right’ answer when perhaps there isn’t one and they have to make their own moral judgment.

People do hold strong views on abortion, for instance, and other emotive issues. Last week I posted Seamus Heaney’s poem Punishment where in the last few lines he expresses his feelings of guilt at watching women being tarred and feathered mutely, yet others would have seen this as a fair punishment.

There are no easy answers to ethical questions, we have to decide for ourselves after listening to the arguments. Unfortunately often we simply go with our ‘gut feeling’. So ‘ why is there no public discussion about ethics?
- it’s easier to go along with others if they are persuasive, if those close think in a certain way; it’s hard to articulate counter arguments and frustrating to fail to convince.

I am not a philosopher, never studied ethics, floundering like most. I am so sorry that you feel helpless in this situation and hope that it may be resolved soon.