Ersatz TLS discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Weekly TLS
>
What Are We Reading? 12 April 2021
date
newest »
newest »
AB76 wrote: "...have read both scarlet but thanks for the tips... I'm glad, both that you have read them, and that you liked them. I don't have any other suggestions on that part of the world!
Fascinating reading the chapter by Retallack in Germany's Second Reich dealing with the situation in Saxony, which sided with the losing Austrians in the 1866 conflictIn the end Saxony joined the North German Confederation and became an integral part of the mighty Second Reich, by the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, battle honours were being won by Saxon regiments under the great flag of Germany. The Saxons had been very uneasy with the results of the 1866 defeat but had found a way to move foward and become one with united Germany.
A preposterous footnote was the idiotic Napoelon 3rd wondering if the saxon king in 1866 could be moved to the Rhineland, as in Saxony, he was a catholic monarch in a majority protestant state.
Bismarck is behind all the moves in this period, what a statesman, question remains, if he remained at the helm after 1888, could he have tempered the rather spicy policies of Kaiser Wilhlelm 2nd?
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "...have read both scarlet but thanks for the tips... I'm glad, both that you have read them, and that you liked them. I don't have any other suggestions on that part of the world!"
If you are interested, the novels of Charles Hougron and Marguerite Duras are interesting contemporary studies of French Indochina. Duras is well known for her three Indochina novels, Hougron less so but i have three of his 1950s novels set in Indochina. (while one of the Duras novels is set close or in a region of Cambodia, the main location is Vietnam in all the other novels)
my new avatar is a striking image from the Australian Forces Vietnam website of troops arriving or heading out in Brisbane, early 1970s
Georg wrote: "What I don't understand: why are you so interested in the lives of composers and so uninterested in the lives of writers?"I did say that there are exceptions to the author-as-arsehole rule, but it’s my default assumption about authors, so I tend to avoid personal interactions with them. I’ve never personally known a composer, only met David Del Tredici once for an autograph (he seemed nice) – backstage after a concert where he was being treated rather as chopped liver while most of the audience members who made their way to the reception room were crowded around soprano Barbara Hendricks.
I think composers for the most part depend on some amount of collaboration with others at the point where their works meet the public, so they tend to develop a certain level of social cooperation by necessity. Again, there are exceptions to this, autocrats like Wagner and Schoenberg, for whom I nevertheless have some level of sympathetic understanding (they were, after all, geniuses, and sometimes were among the few to recognize it). Authors on the other hand create their art alone in a room and require only a few personal contacts for it to make its way to the public – it seems a situation more conducive to the development of egotism.
That doesn’t explain, however, why I am far more interested in the lives of composers than those of writers – I don’t choose them for their more sociable personalities. It’s just that I find books on music much more rewarding than books on literature, and that goes beyond biography. Most music books end up enriching my listening experience after I have read them, whereas things seem much more hit-or-miss with literary criticism, and I’d be pretty hard pressed to name a literary biography that enriched my reading experience. Among literary critics, I do enjoy reading Edmund Wilson for his sharp opinions, though I can’t say he’s affected the way I read; a book like Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War widened my knowledge of 19th century American literature, but did not inform how I read it. I think George Steiner and Elizabeth M. Butler were probably the most enlightening critics I’ve read in terms of opening up new perspectives on classic literature.
Georg wrote: "Tam wrote(185): "Georg wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "That is my understanding also. But that won't help your all-authors-are-arseholes-argument, will it?"You think that they destroyed Jane's..."
I looked up ekphrastic... its greek for writing an intense verbal piece/poem about a work of art. What I have been doing pretty much for the last 5 years or so!... so there you go. If only I had known!... I was hoping you would review Chrome here, with the possibility that I might order it when the libraries open again. Which I think might be soon I hope...
Bill wrote: "
I am reader who reads the endnotes, in the case in Robert Schumann: Herald of a "new Poetic Age". Doing so I learned h..."
Bill - those Wagner/Schumann observations are hilarious!
I tend more towards the Schumann end of the spectrum - in conversation, anyway. Perhaps not online.
scarletnoir wrote: "I tend more towards the Schumann end of the spectrum - in conversation, anyway. Perhaps not online."I’m a big Wagner fan, but definitely identify with Schumann in that scenario as well. Wagner is one of those numerous figures whose works I admire, whose life I find fascinating, and who I would probably not ever want personal acquaintance with (maybe it’s the whole “dinner party” question again). It’s fascinating that someone like Nietzsche, who seems so assertive on the page, could put up with being Wagner’s dogsbody for so many years – though they were years that went into forming the philosopher’s mature character.
Reen wrote: "You might be amused by some of this...http://peterchrisp.blogspot.com/2018/..."
That seems to confirm that Joyce had an inordinately high opinion of himself - something which (I think) can be seen in his face... I know it's not a popular opinion with the 'forest dwellers', but IMHO he'd have done better to quit while he was still ahead... after 'Potrait of the Artist...', maybe. He also seems to have been an early success at that modern skill (or is it?) of self-promotion...
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Vietnam is the topic of my latest modern novel, well written in 1975... Should be an intense read...If you want an intense read about Vietnam, I'd recommend 'Disp..."
Somewhat on the periphery, but I did enjoy the biography of Henry Cabot Lodge The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War who spent time (think Diem) as Ambassador.
Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Was Joyce a total arsehole, as proposed in this piece?"I pretty much make the assumption that all authors are total arseholes, although I am aware that there are occasional ex..."
Try Stephen King's memoir -
. But then I am originally from Maine, so I like his reminiscences. Note: LaVerdiere's was a drugstore that had a lot of cheapish items. Also - it is the only Stephen King book I have ever read. Too scared to pick up anything else of his.
Tam wrote(207): "Georg wrote: "Tam wrote(185): "Georg wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "That is my understanding also. But that won't help your all-authors-are-arseholes-argument, will it?"You think that they de..."
I find it difficult to review Chroma. There is so much crammed into so short a book, where would you start describing it? I found it fascinating and inspiring.
You don't have to wait for the library to open, you can read it here:
https://de.scribd.com/document/104209...
(there is no "Contents" page, I ended up scribbling my own, the quality is poor-ish, but ok with the zoom function)
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Vietnam is the topic of my latest modern novel, well written in 1975... Should be an intense read...If you want an intense read about Vietnam, I'd re..."
good recommendation MK, this is def on my radar. Cabot Lodge one of many meddling americans in the Vietnamese pot....Greenes "The Quiet American" is eerily prescient in its theme....i recommend it if you havent read it.
MK wrote: "Try Stephen King's memoir ..."Oh yeah, I did read On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, but, again, didn't have it flagged as biography. I think I picked it up because it was mentioned as a book about writing, but I find that it was the memoir of his injury and its aftermath that burned itself into my memory. I haven't been wild about the other King books I've read - 'Salem's Lot was the best of a fair-to-middling crop - and have pretty much given up on him.
I remember another literary biography I read some time ago (beyond the point my Goodreads list begins) - Dorothy Parker. I remember very little of it; the best thing may have been the title: Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?. As with the Beckett book, it didn't inspire me to read Parker's writings.
I think that the literary biographies that worked best for me were those of Joyce and Burgess and that might well be because I'd read practically all of their work before coming to the life. Not many authors I can say that about.
scarletnoir wrote: "Reen wrote: "You might be amused by some of this...http://peterchrisp.blogspot.com/2018/..."
That seems to confirm that Joyce had an inordinately high opinion of himself - something which (I thin..."
He wasn't a fella to hide his light under a bushel or wear his learning lightly. Dubliners is my favourite of what I'm sure he'd like to be referred to as his oeuvre.
At least two sculptures of him about the town that I can think of if anyone is compiling a list of busts ... and-or bollockses. Ha.
SydneyH wrote: "AB76 wrote: "deployed to Vietnam (3,000 New Zealanders too) ... Not much is known in the UK of the aussie involvement."Culturally, we followed America's response to the war. Many in the public op..."
And here's the anthem, Redgum's 'I Was Only 19'. Bear in mind that the guy in the song isn't a nasho as we called them, he's a volunteer which makes it even more poignant:
https://youtu.be/d7Rg8JmYV5o
Finished the five-hour dramatization of “The Brothers Karamazov” on BBC Sounds. Beautifully acted, and not bad as a recounting of the story, if very much abridged. But….The Brothers K and no Grand Inquisitor??!! Ivan’s “poem” is cut out completely.
AB76 wrote: "MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Vietnam is the topic of my latest modern novel, well written in 1975... Should be an intense read...If you want an intense read about Viet..."
Just took a look at the synopsis, so, yes, I do remember it. I recall wanting to shake a little reality into Alden Pyle.
In Cabot Lodge's defense, while in the Senate (as a Republican), he proposed a bill to eliminate the Electoral College - which went nowhere - but I give him credit for trying.
Magrat wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "AB76 wrote: "deployed to Vietnam (3,000 New Zealanders too) ... Not much is known in the UK of the aussie involvement."Culturally, we followed America's response to the war. Many ..."
thanks for this magrat
Terror on the Mountain by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, translated by Milton Stansbury.Five impoverished men decide to lead their cattle to summer pasture in a remote alpine meadow. The village council, however, forbids them because the place is subject to an ancient curse. Defiant, the herdsmen guide their cows to the rich green fields. Confined to a tiny cabin, the men begin to argue and squabble. Indistinct, terrifying noises are heard in the starless night, someone - something walking on the roof. The youngest, just a boy, flees the mountain in fear. Their cattle contract an unknown, contagious and deadly desease. Back at the village the men are confined to exile, but the herdsmen have family and flaunt the order to secretly meet.
For Ramuz the plot is very much secondary though. His brilliance is in building the mood of dread against the striking imagery of the Scex Rouge mountain.
It is clear Ramuz is a mountain man.. (here he describes what one of the herders sees when he climbs out of the valley)
..the rock where Metrailler was standing became red; and the sun up above had not shown itself, although it seemed that we had shown it; it had not risen, although it seemed that we had lifted it; disheveled, and all wrapped up, entwined with clouds which were themselves like clots of blood. Exactly like a severed head around which the beard and hair still hung smoking; that we lifted in the air a moment, only to let fall again. And already the fog and the darkness had come back to their place.
And this, as they climb higher..
If anyone could have seen him (Joseph), he would now have been no bigger than a speck, seen from the bottom of the glacier, then he would no longer have been seen at all and it would have been as if he did not exist.…Where was he going? Again, you wondered: ‘Where could he possibly be going?
This is a great little novel, published in 1925 and now out of print, and difficult to get hold of. I think its only a matter of time until its rediscovered and reissued. Its available on Open Library, along with another two of his novels, which I will read soon.
Ideally it should be enjoyed with a muscatel, drifting away occasionally to imagine those cowbells and the cool alpine air with the sharp colours of a high meadow.
Andy wrote: "Terror on the Mountain by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, translated by Milton Stansbury.Five impoverished men decide to lead their cattle to summer pasture in a remote al..."
Aha....i read another Ramuz in December, a story about the sun failing to appear throughout the winter in an alpine village. Ramuz is very good at his mountain descriptions and lifestyle commentaries, the real mountain life...i found the way the mountain folk spoke of Lake Geneva, as quite haunting, a world of vines, blue water and warmth, far from their alpine redoubts.
(There is a character called Metraillier in my novel too)
Russell wrote: "Finished the five-hour dramatization of “The Brothers Karamazov” on BBC Sounds. Beautifully acted, and not bad as a recounting of the story, if very much abridged. But….The Brothers K and no Grand ..."there was a reference to this in "The Hungry Grass". As the priest Conroy sits eating his lunch, prepared by his housekeeper, he wonders what she is reading by the stove, as she waits for him to finish. "tis the brothers karamazov" she replies.
AB – The Hungry Grass - Bravo to the housekeeper. She’s in good company. It was also a favourite of Queen Mary, wife of George V.
Russell wrote: "AB – The Hungry Grass - Bravo to the housekeeper. She’s in good company. It was also a favourite of Queen Mary, wife of George V."it remains the last Dostoyevsky i have to read, between 2001-2004 i devoured all his other great novels. Bewitched by Crime and Punishment, The Devils was my favourite of his novels, The House of the Dead was a nightmare vision, while notes from underground was the first i read,. I least enjoyed The Idiot but plan to re-read it
I remember a drink fuelled trip to the polish mountains in summer 1999, a young belarussian remarked that reading Dostoy in russian is a real challenge for any student or thinker, she made me consider how translation can lighten the load on the non-russian speaking reader. (Anastasia, as our resident russian speaker,what do you think?)
Before closing time, in the week of JM Synge's birthday, some may be interested in the first article by the excellent Frank McNally of The Irish Times and a second highly amusing article I'm just "after reading", also by McNally (referencing Synge and Joyce as it happens). https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/pl...
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/a-...
(Magrat, I was sorry to read about your beloved dog.)
is amazon anti-paperback?it seems to drive me towards e-books and the cheapest, crappest POD versions of classics
I dont use amazon a lot but i'm looking for paperbacks not ebooks or the butchered POD editions...
Gpfr wrote: "Reen wrote: "Edo online exhibition..."Thanks for this! I've just had a quick look - will take more time later - & have sent the link to my daughter who will love it."
I hope she enjoys it. Only got a chance to look at it properly today myself. Gorgeous. (The exhibition, that is).
Reen wrote: "Before closing time, in the week of JM Synge's birthday, some may be interested in the first article by the excellent Frank McNally of The Irish Times and a second highly amusing article I'm just "..."if anyone is interested in Synge's other work, i recommend his study of the Aran Islands and their traditions...
Mod
Thanks for this! I've just had a quick look - will take more time later - & have sent the link to my daughter who will love it."
I hope she enj..."
She thought it beautiful - as do I.
AB – Dostoy - The Brothers K is top for me, followed by The Idiot (astounding first hundred pages, and a beautiful spirit). Crime and Punishment was mind-blowing at 18, but not quite so good on a re-read a few years ago. The Devils is up for a re-read soon. Of the shorter ones, I thought The Eternal Husband utterly brilliant, but that I need to re-read too.
I went through the whole of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, etc in my first year or two at college. It was as much as I could do to tear myself away from the Russians and study what I was supposed to be studying.
When I was living in Paris 30 years ago there was a French activist guy who went round throwing custard pies at puffed-up French politicians. He wrote a book about it which he called “Cream and Punishment”. Makes me laugh even now.
I went through the whole of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, etc in my first year or two at college. It was as much as I could do to tear myself away from the Russians and study what I was supposed to be studying.
When I was living in Paris 30 years ago there was a French activist guy who went round throwing custard pies at puffed-up French politicians. He wrote a book about it which he called “Cream and Punishment”. Makes me laugh even now.
Russell wrote: "AB – Dostoy - The Brothers K is top for me, followed by The Idiot (astounding first hundred pages, and a beautiful spirit). Crime and Punishment was mind-blowing at 18, but not quite so good on a r..."Cream and Punishment...superb
Dostoy also wrote a few novels that get less publicity, i have one of them on my pile"Humiliated and Insulted", yet to read it...have you read it?
AB - That is actually a new one on me. I'll be interested to hear what you think.
AB76 wrote:I remember a drink fuelled trip to the polish mountains in summer 1999, ""Drink fuelled and you can remember it? 🤣
Russell wrote: "AB - That is actually a new one on me. I'll be interested to hear what you think."its way down the pile but should be inline for next few years
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote:I remember a drink fuelled trip to the polish mountains in summer 1999, ""Drink fuelled and you can remember it? 🤣"
hahahaha
Reen wrote: "He wasn't a fella to hide his light under a bushel or wear his learning lightly. Dubliners is my favourite of what I'm sure he'd like to be referred to as his oeuvre."Dubliners is really good - I have never forgotten that passage about the boys' first day in school (I think), when a Christian Brother comes in to the room, and beats the holy crap out of one of the pupils - not because he'd done anything, but as a warning to the rest to not step out of line. Very 'Christian'!
Pity about (some of) what came later... IMO, of course.
Russell wrote: "Finished the five-hour dramatization of “The Brothers Karamazov” on BBC Sounds. Beautifully acted, and not bad as a recounting of the story, if very much abridged. But The Brothers K and no Grand Inquisitor??!! Ivan’s “poem” is cut out completely.Haha! As I suspected, then - the drama without the philosophy. An eviscerated version. (As I commented elsewhere, Tolstoy is much improved by such treatments, but not - never - FD.)
AB76 wrote: "I least enjoyed The Idiot..."Same here - though I have read them all at least twice, including that one.
I intend to post the translator's comment from my copy of 'Karamazov' soon, as quality of translation seems a topic worth exploring.
Scarlet - "As I suspected..." – Too true!
Reen wrote: "Before closing time, in the week of JM Synge's birthday, some may be interested in the first article by the excellent Frank McNally of The Irish Times and a second highly amusing article I'm just "..."Reen, thanks for those links... I knew nothing about Synge except for his name, so it was interesting to see that he'd managed to provoke riots, which puts him in good company (Stravinsky, etc. - though that description in his case is disputed, and possibly an exaggeration).
Having spent three years in NI, I'm well familiar with the 'after' construction - that was an excellent and amusing piece about it. It also shows that Joyce had a sense of humour, though in my recollection of his writings he kept it well hidden. (That may be a mis-remembering, of course.)
AB76 wrote: "my new avatar is a striking image from the Australian Forces Vietnam website of troops arriving or heading out in Brisbane, early 1970s"Why? They wouldn't be arriving; the usual practice was to drop them off in the appropriate capital city and leave them to find their own way home. Officers were taken somewhere comfortable to be debriefed, but there were definitely no homecoming parades of any sort.
It has occurred to me that the reason that the ADF co-operated so willingly with the filming of The Odd Angry Shot is that they wanted to emphasise the fun parts of military service and play down just how unpopular the Vietnam war really was at home.
Lljones wrote: "Another sad week at eTLS - the devastating news from Magrat about the loss of Bella, You're in my heart, Mags & Mr. M and poor, lonely Lotti. Hugs to all of you.Interesting links...
(From this ..."
You've done a great deal to hold this international group together, even with bad news. Regrets.
scarletnoir wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Unusual for me, but I got all three...my father worked the green chains in various lumber mills, and a great-uncle was a gandy dancer."I did wonder whether the terms would be wide..."
I understand that for years railroad spikes had the manufacturer's name, Gandy, stamped on the sides, and that the men who drove in the spikes were "gandy dancers." One of my father's ancestors followed those railway construction crews, printing newspapers.
Magrat wrote: "AB76 wrote: "my new avatar is a striking image from the Australian Forces Vietnam website of troops arriving or heading out in Brisbane, early 1970s"Why? They wouldn't be arriving; the usual prac..."
Ah...makes sense, so thats a parade leaving Brisbane, i notice the song you referred to, mentions Townsville as a deployment point, the largest port in the North East
i havent seen the film but am enjoying the novel, its an unusual winner of a book award but i can imagine in 1975 it was very now, very modern. Clipped, staccato style, dialogue heavy and full of earthy discourse
Coronation Street is mentioned in the novel, was that soap big down under?
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I least enjoyed The Idiot..."Same here - though I have read them all at least twice, including that one.
I intend to post the translator's comment from my copy of 'Karamazov' soon,..."
i have become more interested in translation discussion in last 5 years or so, oddly as my non-translated fiction reading is at its highest.
some articles in NYRB and LRB have been good in comparing translations of the classics and whether the late victorian translators of the russians are more faithful to the time than more modern ones, here is a story from 2005:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
Garnett translated all my russian classics i have read, escept for Virgin Soil by Turgenev, which i recommend, which was translated by Pursglove
AB76 wrote: "...some articles in NYRB and LRB have been good in comparing translations of the classics and whether the late victorian translators of the Russians are more faithful to the time than more modern ones, here is a story from 2005:https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20..."
Thank you for that - it was very interesting, though at times it read like an advertorial for the husband-and-wife translation team of Pevear and Volhokonsky.
It's interesting to note that a translation by Nabokov is criticised (in effect) for its pretentiousness in using rarely used English words, when more commonplace alternatives exist, as pointed out by his sometime friend Edmund Wilson:
...the only characteristic Nabokov trait that one recognizes in this uneven and sometimes banal translation is the addiction to rare and unfamiliar words, which, in view of his declared intention to stick so close to the text that his version may be used as a trot, are entirely inappropriate here. . . . He gives us, for example, rememorating, producement, curvate, habitude, rummers, familistic, gloam, dit, shippon and scrab.
In all, Wilson accused Nabokov of “actual errors in English,” an “unnecessarily clumsy style,” “vulgar” phrases, immodesty, inaccurate transliteration, a “lack of common sense,” a “tedious and interminable appendix..."
Wilson had already noted that:
Since Mr. Nabokov is in the habit of introducing any job of this kind which he undertakes by an announcement that he is unique and incomparable and that everybody else who has attempted it is an oaf and an ignoramus, incompetent as a linguist and scholar, usually with the implication that he is also a low-class person and a ridiculous personality, Nabokov ought not to complain if the reviewer, though trying not to imitate his bad literary manners, does not hesitate to underline his weaknesses.
so it should not have been any surprise to him that Nabokov retaliated with a good dose of vitriol.
I tend to agree with a comment posted in a link (here?) that the best idea would be to read the same passage (or chapter) in the available translations, then stick to the one you like the best. An authentic translation which turns off the reader is not going to be particularly productive.
More on this next week when the new thread starts...
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Dubliners (other topics)Terror on the Mountain (other topics)
Terror on the Mountain (other topics)
Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? (other topics)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (other topics)Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (other topics)
George Steiner (other topics)
Edmund Wilson (other topics)
Elizabeth M. Butler (other topics)
More...
@Paul, regarding Jakob Wassermann: You already received some more substantial replies on this than I am able to offer: He is one of the writers I have heard of (partly due to his Melusine - maybe of interest to Tam/jediperson, too?), but never read. I asked three well-read people here, same for them.
First time I came across him, I think, was in Volker Weidermann's excellent "Book of burnt books", Das Buch der verbrannten Bücher- unfortunately, not translated into English yet.
Weidermann writes on Wassermann:
His books were major bestsellers of the Weimar period. Thomas Mann called him 'The world star of the novel' and described him as 'ruined in health and affairs' in December 1933 - and, in fact, Wassermann died ten days later. Hardly any German writer was as strongly affected by the regime change as he was. A dozen years earlier, he had described his double identity as "German and Jew". Now, his books were burnt and the new regime saw to the the impossibilty of such double existences.
I would be interested to read this autobiographical "My Life as German and Jew" (Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude, 1921) at some point. And (special interest) Melusine.
Thanks for reminding me of him.
@reen & @hushpuppy: Am delighted to read your replies. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Please don't take it amiss. I am a bit low-energy lately (currently working Mondays, too, is not a great help, and neither does it reduce overtime...). Finding sustained written conversation a bit difficult just now. I am sure I will be more chatty soon and will get back to you - looking forward to it!