What Are We Reading? 5 April 2021

[Tam]

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Recently better if I shut the crazy one . I have been reading/ writing with one shut...

I don't know if this is a daft suggestion, but would it help to wear a piratical eye-patch ..."

I do agree there. I think CC could look incredibly stylish!... Perhaps taking a leaf or two out of this chaps book!...https://i.postimg.cc/dt6jk2NP/DE-r-JA...

[CCCubbon]

Think I will have to find one!
Oddly enough, looking at your image the two ravens and Odin come into the Absolute Book that I am reading. Mind you, everything seems to be in it somewhere as it travels around burning libraries, strange lands, Hell, Islands of Women or Apples or Summer Roads, the present, dastardly deeds, adventures, stories, mythology.........off to get my second jab.

[giveusaclue]

Tam wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Recently better if I shut the crazy one . I have been reading/ writing with one shut...

I don't know if this is a daft suggestion, but would it help to wear a ..."

Might have trouble with the beard!!😀

[AB76]

Reading another study of mighty Germany Germanys Second Reich a themed study of the Imperial era, which is very good so far. The author James Retallack looks at the subtle contradictions and the wide variety in what was hardly a homogenous Imperial Reich. A regional patchwork of duchies, kingdoms, states and unlike France and Britain, in 1871, it was still a nation with multiple centres of urban culture.

[Robert]

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Recently better if I shut the crazy one . I have been reading/ writing with one shut...

I don't know if this is a daft suggestion, but would it help to wear a piratical eye-patch ..."

A John Wayne patch? Why not? The Duke said that his patch won him an Oscar.

[Magrat]

We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. Our beautiful Bella (my avatar, so help me) died last night of a massive heart attack, just as we were about to have dinner. We'd had her at the vet on Thursday to have a grass seed cut out of her paw and her heart was NAD for a Cavvie of her age. Then yesterday she was in obvious distress, but it was Sunday wasn't it?


Fortunately Richard the gardener was coming this morning anyway, so he buried her. Lotti sniffed at the body while it was lying on the verandah, and watched the burial so we think she'll stop looking for her friend, but everybody's a bit shocked by the suddenness of it all. Poor Mr M is expecting a week of dealing with "Didn't you use to have two?" not to mention "Where's my lovely Bella?" At the moment we do not raise her name in Lotti's hearing until we see how she settles down.

[Gpfr]

Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. Our beautiful Bella (my avatar, so help me) died last night of a massive heart attack, just as we were about to have dinner. We'd had her at the vet ..."

I'm so sorry, Magrat, that's sad.

[Tam]

AB76 wrote: "Reading another study of mighty Germany Germanys Second Reich a themed study of the Imperial era, which is very good so far. The ..."

Finished the last episode of Berlin 45. Really enjoyed seeing it, though that is not the right word to use somehow, it's more that I learnt something worthwhile by seeing it, and how harsh the process of war can be to those on all sides. But what a pity they didn't carry on and include the Berlin airlift as well. I suppose I would have preferred a bit more on the side of political commentary, but I guess that would be a different sort of documentary. I did find myself a bit puzzled as to the doctor handing out antibiotics to civilians, as I thought that they were limited to armed services usage in 1945 as there just wasn't enough to go round. Maybe Germany was ahead of us?

As to your current reading do you have any particular theories as to why so many Germans, (and others!, I seem to remember). were so gung ho for a 'cleansing' war? Such as the poet Rupert Brooke.

And the classic question how did all the Germanic mini-kingdoms assemble themselves, so quickly, into such a patriotic, nationalistic whole? You will possibly tell me to go and look up the Frankfurt treaty but I'm hoping for a simple straightforward explanation, if there is one...

[Tam]

Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. Our beautiful Bella (my avatar, so help me) died last night of a massive heart attack, just as we were about to have dinner. We'd had her at the vet ..."

Sorry about your dog Magrat. It hurts to see them go...

[CCCubbon]

Tam wrote: "Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. Our beautiful Bella (my avatar, so help me) died last night of a massive heart attack, just as we were about to have dinner. We'd had ..."

It's such a sad time when they die. I still miss all of mine. Think I have said before how I dreamt one night they were all sitting in a line by big golden gates waiting for me and, as another passes he or she joins the line.
Rosie, my border collie, used to like to rub herself around my legs. and I am sure sometimes she comes to visit.

[Magrat]

CCCubbon wrote: "Tam wrote: "Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. Our beautiful Bella (my avatar, so help me) died last night of a massive heart attack, just as we were about to have dinne..."

As my mum used to say, you get so attached.

And as Rudyard Kipling said "Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware/of giving your heart to a dog to tear"

I see that there are a number of books about grieving for pets, but in the past we have taken comfort from the relevant chapter of this lovely book


The Animal's Companion: People & Their Pets, a 26,000-Year Love Story

Should I keep my avatar in her honour? We'll see...

[SydneyH]

Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat."

That's awful. Our old cat died last year ... my sincere condolences.

[Lass]

Those of you who are fans of Barbara Pym may like to know that at 9 45 this morn (v soon!) on R4 the Book of the Week is Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym., which I prob mentioned earlier. Repeated at 12 30 this evening, and prob on BBC Sounds too.

[scarletnoir]

Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. Our beautiful Bella (my avatar, so help me) died last night of a massive heart attack, just as we were about to have dinner. We'd had her at the vet ..."

Losing a much loved dog is always really painful - I feel for you.

[Gpfr]

Lass wrote: " on R4 the Book of the Week is Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym..."

Thanks for the reminder! I saw your previous post, but I'd completely forgotten.

[scarletnoir]

Lass wrote: "Those of you who are fans of Barbara Pym may like to know that at 9 45 this morn (v soon!) on R4 the Book of the Week is Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym., which I prob mentioned ea..."

I am most of the way through , and enjoying it very much - the first Pym I have read, but it won't be the last.

My thanks to whoever recommended this book or author recently - I think there may have been several mentions, and perhaps one was from yourself?

[Clare de la lune]

Magrat - I'm sorry for you all losing your dog, Bella. They give so much love that it is hard when they go.

[AB76]

Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Reading another study of mighty Germany Germanys Second Reich a themed study of the Imperial era, which is very good ..."

I will try and answer the questions as best as i can

Regarding Imperial Germany and its patchwork of kingdoms, the majority were Protestant and had been part of the Prussian orbit long before 1871, so they were naturally part of a outward looking german nationalistic worldview. The interesting part is the more catholic southern states that joined the empire in the 1860s, who traditionally looked to Hapbsurg Catholic Austria not Protestant Northern Germany

Imperial Germany became a nation with a significant catholic minority, larger than ever before and changed the Prussian dominance slightly, though never under the Bismarckian consitutution did the Northern Germans lose control of the state. So i would suggest there was less jingoism and "germanism" within states like Bavaria and Baden. Adeneuar, first chancellor of West germany, famously recalled how his Rhineland upbringing was suffused with disdain for Prussia and its outllook

In a sort of nutshell Prussian dominance of the state, military and society framed a nationalism that was more fragile in the Catholic West and Catholic South of Germany and the polish areas of the east. One interesting result of Bismarcks failed "Kulturkampf" against the Catholic Church was a strong political force being created in the Zentrum (Catholic) party.

i dont think it was that quick at all to coalesece into a unifed whole, my book makes a point that it was remarkably diverse nation under the imperial cloak, socially, culturally,religiously. Though it was skillfully presented as a whole (this answer covers up to 1914)

As for the cleansing ideals of 1914, i still struggle to understand these elements of a death cult and how this thinking could have been produced from such a productive century after Waterloo accross Europe

[Lljones]

Magrat wrote: "We are going through a rough patch Chez Magrat. ..."

Oh, Mags. I'm so, so sorry for your loss.

[Lass]

Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Recently better if I shut the crazy one . I have been reading/ writing with one shut...

I don't know if this is a daft suggestion, but would it help to wear a ..."

Sorry to hear that, Magrat.

[scarletnoir]

Tam wrote: "Finished the last episode of Berlin 45. Really enjoyed seeing it, but what a pity they didn't carry on and include the Berlin airlift as well...I did find myself a bit puzzled as to the doctor handing out antibiotics to civilians, as I thought that they were limited to armed services usage in 1945 as there just wasn't enough to go round. Maybe Germany was ahead of us?

It sounds as if what you like are history books rather than novels, but the only book I have ever read about the airlift was the unpretentious thriller Air Bridge by Hammond Innes, which may be of interest to someone. I enjoyed it in my teens - no idea how it'd stand up now!

As for 'antibiotics for civilians' - again, I don't know the reality, but it seems as if there may have been a black market in the medicines, as portrayed in the excellent 1949 film "The Third Man", written by Graham Greene, directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thi...

[Tam]

scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "Finished the last episode of Berlin 45. Really enjoyed seeing it, but what a pity they didn't carry on and include the Berlin airlift as well...I did find myself a bit puzzled as to the..."

I have written various articles, based on old art essays, and am repurposing a few of them from my 'Book of Hours' onto my very lazy blog site experiment. They include an essay on Otto Dix and Käthe Kollwitz during world War I. Franz Marc also during WWI, and others that cover WWII and the Cold War. Though mostly focusing on the art, the context under which they are made is an important part of the story. So its documentaries and history of those particular time that interested me. Not novels, I'm sure that there are interesting ones out there, but Its the actual history and the people and the art that interest me.

The Third Man is much later, 4 years after Berlin 45 and is around the time that antibiotics were beginning to filter through to the ordinary populace. I have a vague memory of George Orwell being one of the first in Britain to receive a course of (US) antibiotics in 1950 for his TB, which alas for him turned out to be too late. The docudrama Berlin 45 has them being given out by a Berlin doctor to women that have either been raped, or bartered sex for food, after the fall of The Reich. The conditions for Berliners at the time was truly horrendous. Anyway being a docudrama, which mixes real film with staged vignettes of various peoples diaries it's something that caught my eye, and I was wondering if they had been a bit 'flighty with the actuality?

My interest in the 'Berlin Airlift' is that my dad was a pilot, of liberators, and took part in the 'lift' and so I would have liked to have seen some real footage of it. I saw a documentary, a long time ago, but it was mostly planes taking off and landing, and did not focus on the people at all.

He was invited back as a veteran on the fiftieth anniversary of the 'lift', all expenses paid, by the city of Berlin, for a commemorative dinner there, for all those who took part. I dropped him off at Heathrow and could not resist a parting "Hey dad, remember... just "Don't mention the War""...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl6L...

[Bill]

Very sorry to hear about Bella, Magrat.