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What Are We Reading? 15 March 2021
Perhaps because I just read Debussy: A Painter in Sound, I recall that one of Debussy’s Préludes (Book 2), "Les Fées sont d'exquises danseuses", takes its title from a Rackham illustration for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i am beginning to get a bit "exhibition-itus", which in my own mind is when 12 mths of no physical exhibitions to visit and view gets on my tits!All the creativity and hard work has ..."
Ansel Adams..sounds great
The Last Brahmin sounds fascinating MK, what a topic!
Bill wrote: "Perhaps because I just read Debussy: A Painter in Sound, I recall that one of Debussy’s Préludes (Book 2), "Les Fées sont d'exquises danseuses", takes its title from a Rackham illus..."thanks for that Bill. i lived in kensington for 3 years and used to love walking down by the peter pan statue in the Gardens and thinking of the book i loved as a kid
Thanks for the Cornish ideas.
I've reserved Du Maurier' Vanishing Cornwall and The Swordfish and The Star by Gavin Knight at my local library.The Swordfish and the Star: Life on Cornwall's most treacherous stretch of coast
Thanks for the link to the GR list - I like the sound of the Helen Dunmore children's books.
I also have a kindle version of Wilkie Collins Rambles Beyond Railways Notes In Cornwall Taken A Foot
I've reserved Du Maurier' Vanishing Cornwall and The Swordfish and The Star by Gavin Knight at my local library.The Swordfish and the Star: Life on Cornwall's most treacherous stretch of coast
Thanks for the link to the GR list - I like the sound of the Helen Dunmore children's books.
I also have a kindle version of Wilkie Collins Rambles Beyond Railways Notes In Cornwall Taken A Foot
Sybille Bedford's The Faces of Justice has really come to life in her chapter on german trials and the legal system, visiting Karlsrhuhe, Munich and some small courts in sessionShe estimates that 200 of the 11,000 German judges in 1959 had nazi connections of some sort, roughly 2%. It makes me wonder what they really felt and how they had adjusted to life outside the Nazi straitjacket. I would imagine that many were youngish and not that influential 15 years before Bedfords book but would be fascinating for somebody to follow a nazi functionary into the BDR and see what the result was...did they change "inside", appearences can be deceptive
I'm much in favour of all things German and wish our legal system was as fair, balanced and interested in the word of the law. In the UK it sometimes seems to serve the rich and the influential. Tory cuts to legal aid were really low and unbecoming to a modern democratic state
Pomfretian wrote: "Thanks for the Cornish ideas.I've reserved Du Maurier' Vanishing Cornwall and The Swordfish and The Star by Gavin Knight at my local library.[book:The Swordfish and the Star: Life on Cornwall's mo..."
The Dead Secret by Wilkie collins is set in cornwall
On topic for once, and set in Cornwall...is The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
I was a bit negative about this before reading it, yet compelled to read it..
A couple of months ago I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Unremembered Places: Exploring Scotland's Wild Histories by Patrick Baker, and he piqued my interest in lighthouses in his description of the Fladda lighthouse on the Slate Islands, in the Inner Hebrides. I followed a couple of the references he quoted and came across a wonderful book, Scottish Lighthouses by Sharma Krauskopf, which is a superb edition to my library. She describes the period of the Lighthouse Stevensons beautifully (another book I have on the shelf, yet to read, The Lighthouse Stevensons, Bella Bathurst), and tanatalises with the story of the disappearance of 3 keepers at Flannan Isle, about which there is Gibson's poem, Flannan Isle, and a 2018 film, The Vanishing.
So to Stonex's book.. I felt it would struggle to do justice to the Flannan Isle story, where I expect she got her idea, and transferred it the remote Cornish coast in 1972. This was the time when such keepers were becoming rare; automation began in the UK in the 1960s, the last, moved out of at North Foreland in Kent in 1998.
I think she has done a really good job. She plays with lots of threads, while the reader postulates what could have happened, swaying favour between theories cleverly. The strength though is the timing of the various revelations, and in building tension, to what is an excellent finale. Of course some of those threads are more absorbing than others; that of the wives twenty years later does not work so well. Arguably, it would have made a great novella...
My cynicism of her jumping onto the 'lighthouse bandwagon', after also the splendid Robert Eggers 2019 film, proved largely unfounded.
But I will finish with a quote from that 1912 Wilfrid Wilson Gibson poem...
Yet, as we crowded through the door,
We only saw a table spread
For dinner, meat, and cheese and bread;
But, all untouch'd; and no-one there,
As though, when they sat down to eat,
Ere they could even taste,
Alarm had come, and they in haste
Had risen and left the bread and meat,
For at the table head a chair
Lay tumbled on the floor.
Andy wrote: "he piqued my interest in lighthouses..."For those interested in lighthouse design, the Eddystone lighthouse built on rocks south of Rame Head in Cornwall should be of interest. The most famous lighthouse built on the Eddystone Rocks was designed by John Smeaton, and was in use from 1759-1877. The building and design incorporated some rediscovered ideas and some novel ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddysto...
When erosion meant that a new lighthouse had to be built, most of Smeaton's lighthouse was removed and rebuilt as a memorial to the engineer - Smeaton's Tower stands proudly to this day on Plymouth Hoe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smeaton...
Georg wrote: "(I don't think "Treasure Island" is a boy's book, btw. My love for pirates goes back a long long way. As does my contempt for girlie stuff. Which was mainly about horses when I was a girl. Urghh...)"Haha! Glad to hear it... well, my daughters didn't like it for some reason. As for books about horses, as a young boy I read - and re-read - Anna Sewell's Black Beauty about six times. It had me in buckets of tears every time...
Russell wrote: "@Pomfretian – If it’s not already on your list, I recommend The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley, to my mind the perfect Cornwall vacation read."I have never read the novel, though it appears that the setting - and indeed, many of the characters - were drawn from real life. It's clear that the war acted as a catalyst for the shedding of inhibitions in Wesley's circle:
Wesley stated: "It was a flighty generation.... [W]e had been brought up so repressed. War freed us. We felt if we didn't do it now, we might never get another chance."[7] "It got to the state where one woke up in the morning, reached across the pillow and thought, 'Let's see. Who is it this time?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_We...
The book was adapted into a very successful TV series with an excellent cast, and directed by Peter Hall. I can strongly recommend this, having seen it on release (1992) and during the last year of 'confinement to barracks' thanks to COVID - it is available to stream on the Channel 4 player.
scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: "@Pomfretian – If it’s not already on your list, I recommend The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley, to my mind the perfect Cornwall vacation read."I have never read the novel, though it..."
i remember the series as i was 16 and very taken with Jennifer Ehle!
AB76 wrote(56): "Sybille Bedford's The Faces of Justice has really come to life in her chapter on german trials and the legal system, visiting Karlsrhuhe, Munich and some small courts in sessionShe estimates that 200 of the 11,000 German judges in 1959 had nazi connections of some sort, roughly 2%."
I have no numbers and I doubt it would be easy to get any meaningful ones.
But I am sure that S. Bedford is way off the mark there.
My estimation would be 20-50%. Closer to 50, definitely.
If you got your degree as a lawyer before 1939 you would have been born around 1915 or earlier, in 1959 you would have been in your mid-fourties or older. No degrees from 1939-45.
The true reckoning about the hundreds of thousands of Nazis who, after 45, turned into respectable, conservative democrats only started with the student movement in the mid-sixties. The debate is, to this day, not settled.
You might be interested in the careers of two eminent politicians, both lawyers:
Hans Filbinger, later Ministerpräsident of Baden-Württemberg:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Fi...
and Kurt Georg Kiesinger, the 3rd German Chancellor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Ge...
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote(56): "Sybille Bedford's The Faces of Justice has really come to life in her chapter on german trials and the legal system, visiting Karlsrhuhe, Munich and some small courts in sessionS..."
thanks Georg, i will have a look at those two links
Bedford alleges that figure and she doesnt go any further to include a source sadly, so i agree its merely a suggestion.
my reading about nazi law, involving Carl Schmitt in the early days and then many other eminent jurists who helped re-write the legal codes on certain subjects is alarming and disconcerting. Quite what people who believed in the rule of law hoped to gain from the haberdashers shop of nazi bunkum i dont know, i would cynically say career ops and a better salary but it does make me wonder a lot about 1930s German society
One of these ‘Misc.’ posts, including some about comments from last thread, sorry.@Miri, in case you read this, I’m really glad you’re getting again some pleasure reading (the latest Ishiguro). From the few novel(la)s of his that I have read, I think you’re spot on about what links them… Ishiguro himself said in a webchat organised by wonderful Sam in 2015 that all of his books deal with the same subject. I have to confess though, the title Klara and the Sun almost entirely puts me off - I am aghast at how shallow I am!
People here might have also missed an article in the G in which other writers explain why each of his novels (except the first two I think) is their favourite. Spoilers galore, beware if you haven’t already read them.
@Kayaki, I’ve loved your post about fireflies; as a consequence, I have now returned on the G to my original avatar, Setsuko. I don’t know if you’ve read this article, which showed in particular, how they were saved from extinction in Japan. I’ve read recently Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain, and there are some wonderful evocations of fireflies lighting up the night over a river of the island of Penang. I know interwar really liked his two books, the other being The Garden of Evening Mists, although I cannot find any post referring to former atm. Like her, I would really recommend both, even if for me The Garden is probably the most accomplished one.
@Tam, just to confirm what MB and Miri mentioned: ECT used to be a very crude (and perhaps cruel) tool, but no longer. While it is still quite radical in its effect - indeed, this is precisely what is required, a major reset button - and used only as a last resort, it’s one very effective treatment in mental health, now much more tailored and far less potent that in its e.g. 50s incarnation. Lobotomy, thankfully, is a thing of the (horrific) past.
Only remain partial resections, whereby the small regions of the brain where refractory, debilitating and life-endangering epilepsy has been located (not always possible by any means) are removed. This can still have drastic consequences of course. The most ‘impressive’ are callosotomy, where the bridge of white matter fibres that connect your two hemispheres is cut, in order to limit the spread of epileptic activity in the brain. People can be born without a corpus callosum (that bridge) and live well enough, but sometimes, such callosotomy can lead to odd (e.g.) motor symptoms.
@Flint/Vasco/Slawks: I have finally watched The Darjeeling Limited! I’ve really liked it; any Wes Anderson brings me joy, but this one particularly did so, despite its bitter sweet, and even melancholy moments, especially with the aftermaths of the river rescue.
@Swelter/Bill. So so many. I have read Little Women maybe a decade ago, 2/3 of The Wind in the Willows 2 years ago, Anne of Green Gables last year and the entire collection of Winnie-The-Pooh only a few months ago. Each time with delight. As a kid, The Call of the Wild and White Fang were firm favourites, as were the Dumas Père (Le comte de Monte-Cristo, La tulipe noire, Les trois mousquetaires). And @scarlet re pirates, @Carmen/Ruby here might have read more books about piracy than all of us combined!
I hope Sam is ok and that Galley Beggar Press are doing ok in these times?
AB76 wrote: "I hope Sam is ok and that Galley Beggar Press are doing ok in these times?"Yes, he seemed in good spirit. Their latest novel Mordew was also long-listed for a prize recently...
Sorry, no head for books for once, as I just wrote in the "My Family and other Animals" thread. My brain and I will be back later. Or so I would hope.This is just to say thank you to Hushpuppy for the oximeter reminder the other day. I got the little devices in the pharmacy today (one set for my mother & sister, one set for the inlaws, and one for us).
Hushpuppy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I hope Sam is ok and that Galley Beggar Press are doing ok in these times?"Yes, he seemed in good spirit. Their latest novel Mordew was also long-listed for a prize r..."
thanks hush, say hi from me
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "This is just to say thank you to Hushpuppy for the oximeter reminder the other day.."Indeed - madame ordered one, and collected it from Argos this morning!
I am looking forward to testing it, to see if it can detect any signs of life...
GeorgArticle on Nazi's in the BRD from 2016, calculating that 90 of the 170 leading justices in the BRD were ex Nazi's (almost 53%)
Your estimates were good!
https://www.thelocal.de/20161010/most...
MK wrote: "RE - Cornwall - https://www.philipmarsden.co.uk/"
Never heard of Phillip Marsden but those books sound like just the thing! Thanks MK :)
Never heard of Phillip Marsden but those books sound like just the thing! Thanks MK :)
Hushpuppy wrote: In re Ishiguro and children's lit ...It’s not so much the title, but what, from the reviews I’ve read, seems kind of a silly take on a common SF trope that’s made Klara and the Sun seem unattractive to me (but then, as I stated before, based on the author and description, Mr Beethoven is actually the only new novel in recent months I found myself wanting to read). I haven’t read any Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day is the only possibility for the future – but descriptions of his works that are SFF genre-inflected do not sound appealing at all.
I have been reading reviews of his latest though and, since I never intend to read it, I jumped on SF writer Adam Roberts’ spoiler-filled on-line review, Klara and the Spoilers, to get the full low-down. Roberts warns about the spoilers in his opener and urges readers to read the novel before proceeding.
That's to say: it's hard to discuss this novel without giving away its ‘reveal’. Not that Ishiguro is an M. Night Shyamalan type of author, of course; we don't read him for his startling plot-twists. Perhaps spoilers don't matter. What he's doing in this novel doesn't depend upon his reveal, which ought to mean it would be possible to include spoilers in my discussion without actually spoiling the reading experience. Nevertheless, you probably don't want to read this review if you haven't read the novel. And you should read the novel! It's a good novel. Only ...Personally, I didn’t find anything in Roberts’ lengthy review to encourage me to rethink my disinclination to read Klara; quite the opposite, in fact. But he did send me to my shelves to pull down a collection of Brian Aldiss stories.
Wait a minute, if The Wind in the Willows was so good, why did you leave it only 2/3 read?
In most cases it’s not clear to me whether the children’s books people are praising are books they first read as children and then re-read as adults or whether they discovered them for the first time as adults. I would tend to distrust such (re)evaluations in the former case.
As I’ve said elsewhere I read very little children’s lit as an actual child, so for me it’s pretty much all adult reading, and in the vast majority of cases not very good adult reading. I don’t think that I can honestly objectively re-assess things I liked as a child, which are mostly movies and comic books; there’s still a very young boy’s consciousness riding along (and enjoying it) with me when I re-experience these things, as well as an adult whose tastes and imagination were shaped by the very things being re-experienced.
I came across this article on present day Syria, and books, in the Guardian... I think well worth repeating in terms of the message that the stuff of life is always relativehttps://www.theguardian.com/news/2021...It brought me back to a quote I used in my 'Book of Hours', written about five years ago, from a journalist in Raqqa. I tried to contact him, to say that I wanted to use his quote in my book. I didn't get a reply. I do still wonder what happened to him... and I am still sad to this day...
“When US air strikes started, though, activists warned families not to dry dark clothes outside or on their roofs, in case they were mistaken for Isis flags. Perhaps Isis was worried, too, as it has started repainting everything. One central square, where crucifixion and other gruesome punishments are carried out in public, has been decked out in candy colours - pink, green and white. Another is golden.”
A report from Raqqa, inside the Islamic State in Syria, by Abu Ibrahim al- Raqqawi, The Guardian, 21 Feb, 2015,
Tam wrote: "I came across this article on present day Syria, and books, in the Guardian... I think well worth repeating in terms of the message that the stuff of life is always relativehttps://www.theguardian...."two great books i read on modern Syria and the war were:
though the second book also offers a very well constructed history of the Alawi influence in Syria since 1970 via Assad Snr. it also looks briefly at Alawi clans in the Lebanese city of Tripoli
Bill wrote (#74): "It’s not so much the title, but what, from the reviews I’ve read, seems kind of a silly take on a common SF trope that’s made Klara and the Sun seem unattractive to me"Fair enough! I haven't read much at all about it as I don't want any spoilers, but it seemed to have been favourably compared with the McEwan that navigated the same themes (although this might be faint praise indeed considering the pounding the latter took). Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go was only ever so slightly SF, hardly any suspension of disbelief was needed I think. A very affecting and well drawn novel, with very believable characters and relationships, if not quite on par with The Remains of the Day (for me; I know other people disagree), but what can?
Wait a minute, if The Wind in the Willows was so good, why did you leave it only 2/3 read?
Tsk tsk. Have a look at this TLS thread in which a certain Swelter - whodat? - participated. As it happens, I got for my Christmas the same edition as my f-i-l, so will be able to resume at leisure now.
In most cases it’s not clear to me whether the children’s books people are praising are books they first read as children and then re-read as adults or whether they discovered them for the first time as adults. I would tend to distrust such (re)evaluations in the former case.
Yes, I would agree with that, it is incredibly hard to entirely distance yourself (and why should one?) from your first childhood literary loves when re-reading them as adults. In the case of all the books I've listed, except for the Dumas Sr and Jack London, I've made it clear it was falling into the latter case however!
Hushpuppy wrote: "except for the Dumas Sr and Jack London"They are given to children to read, but are those books really children's books, though? The Call of the Wild was first serialized in a mainstream magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, with a primarily adult readership, and I believe White Fang was intended for a similar audience, though it evidently didn't first have a magazine serialization.
The Dumas books seem to have a similar publication history in France, originally serialized in adult publications.
By contrast, Treasure Island was first serialized in a magazine called Young Folks.
I have a bunch of 19th century children's books lined up for the next few months, some because of their fame, some because of their influence on children who later became writers, some because they seem to be so characteristic of their era. The last one I read was Les Malheurs de Sophie, by the Comtesse de Ségur, which I found to be as charming as one could hope, though this reaction is probably helped along by my no better than fair to middling French reading skills. In my efforts to improve, I usually have a French-language book that I'm reading slowly, a few pages a night, and that was the one I chose last month.
This month it's Paul de Kock's La Pucelle de Belleville, which, though not children's book, feels curiously no more difficult a read than Sophie - perhaps this is one reason why he was so popular with foreign, i.e. non-French readers?
That’s an interesting selection Carmen. Have you been to Florida before? Is it one train or do you have to keep changing? It sounds quite an epic journey . I hope we may travel it with you and be envious!
Carmen212 wrote: "I am going on vacation in April. My first in 12 years. I am taking the train x-country, hanging out with my brother in Florida (we met via DNA testing and we have the same father) and then taking t..."200 hours - that is about 8 days, Carmen! Wow, like the Orientexpress (even longer, that is only 6 days) or the transsibirian railroad (which also takes 8 days!) That is a lot of travel by train!
Carmen212 wrote: "I am going on vacation in April. My first in 12 years. I am taking the train x-country, hanging out with my brother in Florida (we met via DNA testing and we have the same father) and then taking t..."is cross state travel allowed then in a pandemic? i guess every state has its own rules?
How is the Tsarists census database going LL?i have been doing some tinkering with confessional stats for Poles in the Westfalen cities from 1905 German census. (Am interested in the Protestant Polish population of these districts.)
Mod
Stalled out, due to computer issues. I spent another 6 hours on the phone with Microsoft yesterday - looks like it's a goner. I'm going to try to hold it together with tape and glue until I can get back to sales-tax-free Oregon, mid- to late April.
Lljones wrote: "AB76 wrote: "How is the Tsarists census database going LL?"Stalled out, due to computer issues. I spent another 6 hours on the phone with Microsoft yesterday - looks like it's a goner. I'm going ..."
oh dear, was it an old PC?
I have been having a minor reading splurge with Anne Holt’s Hanne Wilhelmsen series to relax, interspersed with my usual more poetic stuff and Possession by AS Byatt to listen.There are ten in the series and I have read three now, rapidly in large print for they are not too long, and into the fourth.
Each book, they are all set in Oslo and I follow the plot with my map to hand remembering some places, is sufficiently different to be interesting. The first Blind Justice drug dealing, the second Blessed are those who thirst brutal rape and the third Death of the Demon a missing child from a foster home.
I won’t pretend they are great in a literary sense but I was going through one of those times picking up novels but not finishing them and these Scandi noir are getting me going again.
Does anyone else have a certain kind of book which helps relaxation? If so, which kind?
Have finished Friend by Paek Nam Nyong,
written in 1988, this North Korean novel was published by U of Columbia Press in 2020Mostly concerned with a divorce case being investigated by a 50 something judge, the narrative moves backwards and fowards in time, with a heavy focus on working life. This work is mostly proletarian and viewed with reverence and awe, as the characters move to and from work and their duties to the socialist state.
The character of the judge leavens the feel of a work from the depths of the 1950s DDR, in its strange worship of the dignity of work, which is rarely the case in factories or mines. While the judge and his investigation are the best sections of the novel, they also serve as propaganda for what the state sees as the "correct" way foward.
An interesting sub-plot about corruption fades quickly and the ending is rather mawkish and optimistic, based around the worship of the family unit and its role in the state. It felt rather dissapointing and a stark reminder of where the novel came from and why it was approved by the North Korean state
Saying that, its well worth a read, as a guide to the structures of North Korean life, its is well written and lyrical in places, mixed with a rigourous, somewhat european style of analytical thought
Mod
Three-year-old HP Notebook. Nothing's built to last these days, it seems.
Mod
Ha! LibraryThing tells me it's somewhere in the house.
Lljones wrote: "AB76 wrote: "oh dear, was it an old PC?"Three-year-old HP Notebook. Nothing's built to last these days, it seems."
I think 3-5 yrs is usually what i expect nowadays, really annoying for you LL, especially in these times when we are all looking for more distractions but at least your books are physical/offline, or are you a kindle-junkie?
, i dont use laptops or ipad variants, i have a fixed all in one HP pc which sits on my desk. i occasionally use my smartphone if am downstairs to google things but i'm very old school.
All in one means no extra cabinet to fit in somewhere, its my second all-in-one, the last one lasted 4 years, the screen failed not the hard drive
Bill wrote(74): As I’ve said elsewhere I read very little children’s lit as an actual child, so for me it’s pretty much all adult reading, and in the vast majority of cases not very good adult reading. The Wind in the Willows
Is it a children's book? Why do so many adults enjoy it?
Just my personal view: I think many adults enjoy it because Kenneth Grahame was a fine writer. Not by childrens books standards but by any standards.
There is not much happening in the first half of the book. The main character is Nature. There is eternal beauty in his descriptions:
It was a cold still afternoon with a hard steely sky overhead, when he slipped out of the warm parlour into the open air. The country lay bare and entirely leafless around him, and he thought he had never seen so far and so intimately into the inside of things as on that winter day when Nature was deep into her annual slumber and seemed to have kicked her clothes off. Copses, dells, quarries and all hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a while, till they could riot in rich masquerade as before, and trick and entice him with the old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and yet cheering - even exhiliarating. He was glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard,and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple.
Grahame wasn't condescending. He trusted children to be discerning readers.
AB76 wrote: "Have finished Friend by Paek Nam Nyong, written in 1988, this North Korean novel was published by U of Columbia Press in 2020Mostly concerned ..."
Thanks AB. I remain keen..
I follow the Twitter feed @CanadaPaintings and today saw this by C. W. Jeffries:
and I was reminded of this:
I'm a quarter into Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson, wonderfully translated by Linda Coverdale. It didn't take long to grab my complete attention, along with a notepad and search engine to hand. I'm going to be slow and savour it.
It is Tesson's observations on spending 5 months alone in an isolated cabin in the Siberian winter on the shores of Lake Baikal.
I'm fascinated by these 'over winter' experiences, having recently read two other excellent accounts, A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, and One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith. And, more recently, Ankomst by Gøhril Gabrielsen, fiction, but only just.
Here's a few of my early notes...
He quotes Chatwin (What Am I Doing Here?) quoting Jünger quoting Stendhal,
The essential thing is to live ones life with a brave hand on the tiller, swinging boldly between contrasting worlds. Balancing between danger and pleasure, the frigid Russian winter with the warmth of a stove. Never settling, always oscillating from one to the other extremity on the spectrum of sensations.
Then he writes..
Shut inside his cube of logs, the hermit does not soil the earth. From the threshold of his ibza, he watches the seasons perform the dance of eternal return. Possessing no machines, he keeps his body fit. Cut off from all communications, he deciphers the language of the trees. Released from the grip of television, he discovers that a window is more transparent than a TV screen.
He has taken 70 books with him, and does us the honour of announcing the list on page 12. Some really interesting stuff, a proper mixture, even including crime fiction..
Tonight I finished a murder mystery. I closed the book feeling as if I’d just eaten at McDonald’s: nauseated and slightly ashamed.
The action is hectic - and forgotten the next moment
He refers to Leopold from A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There,
All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.
Though when doing nothing other than looking out of his window for hours on end, he says..
To think that writers dare depict the beauty of such places...
He meets up with Russian woodsmen and gradually gets to know some of them well,
I prefer people whose character resembles a frozen lake to those who are more like marshes. The former are cold and hard on the surface, yet deep, roiling and alive underneath, whereas the latter seem soft, spongy, but inert and impermeable at the core.
(..a bit like rural Cumbrians..)
Andy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Have finished Friend by Paek Nam Nyong, written in 1988, this North Korean novel was published by U of Columbia Press in 2020Most..."
go for it Andy, you will probably devour this in 48 hrs!
Bill wrote: "I follow the Twitter feed @CanadaPaintings and today saw this by C. W. Jeffries:and I was reminded of this:
"
Wow, I love that second picture.
Lljones wrote: "AB76 wrote: "oh dear, was it an old PC?"Three-year-old HP Notebook. Nothing's built to last these days, it seems."
I have a 4 year old lenovo and still haven't got the 2004 update. Contacted Lenovo who gave instructions to go into services and stop a particular one then the update would arrive. Unfortunately I haven't got that service listed. Went back to Lenovo who tell me they have contacted Microsoft to be told they are still working on solutions for folk such as me........I'm already 73 😀
Lljones wrote: "AB76 wrote: "oh dear, was it an old PC?"Three-year-old HP Notebook. Nothing's built to last these days, it seems."
Let me know if you are in dire straits - I can lend you my Lenovo laptop with W7, 'til you can get to PDX area. I'm in Magnolia.
Carmen212 wrote: "I am going on vacation in April. My first in 12 years. I am taking the train x-country, hanging out with my brother in Florida (we met via DNA testing and we have the same father) and then taking t..."Are you taking the Empire Builder to Chicago? I would love to take that route.
Please let us know about all the scenery you see - can't spend all your time listening to a player!
Machenbach wrote: "Richard McGuire, Here
I only read perhaps 1 or 2 graphic novels or comic books a year, and that’s mainly because a mate of mine invariably buys me one for ..."
If you are interested in graphic novels, https://www.fantagraphics.com/
is having a sale the end of this month. I think it starts on the 27th for the weekend.
I also see that Amazon has noticed and set up their own graphic imprint! Ugh.
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Books mentioned in this topic
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All the creativity and hard work has been fairly s..."
I'm itching too. With the first shot done, the 2nd one scheduled, and an Ansel Adams exhibit opening at the Portland Art Museum in May, I am planning a long weekend in Portland in mid- to late-May!
It will be so great to get out and about once again. I will have to check my basket at Powells to see what I can easily pick up while there.
In the meantime, I am reading The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War and have reached the point where Diem is nominally in charge in South Vietnam (Nhu making mischief), and Buddhists immolating themselves. This is what Cabot Lodge walks into as he becomes the US Ambassador.
And before Cabot Lodge got to Vietnam, he served in the Senate where he was such a progressive Republican that he once sponsored a bill to do away with The Electoral College! It went nowhere then, and it is surely a mark that today he'd be kicked out of the Party.
If you are not from New England, you may not have heard this snippet -
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.