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What Are We Reading 10 May 2021
The first real spring weather in the Shires, mid teens temps, mild overnight, all pleasent, the sound of birdsong and the buzzing of insects. The Ash and Oak are slow in 2021 but starting to emerge....Reading is going well, the following books on the reading carousel:
The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy (1963)
Consistently good and thought provoking account of the events of 1958-60 in French Algeria, as the war enters a new stage and military officers revolt, ending in the return of Charles De Gaulle to political life. Larteguy focuses on characters from a previous novel and the difficult questions of loyalty and honour in a french military still smarting from defeat in French Indochina
Anti Semitism by Hermann Bahr (1893)
I am being serenaded by Bahr's wonderful prose and his interviews with various eccentrics, thinkers and politicians from 1890s Europe regarding anti-semitism. I have just reached the french section after 70 odd pages of interviews with German intervieweers
Mothers and Daughters by Vedrena Rudan (2010)
A sometimes funny and bittersweet tale of an elderly mother and her daughter, set around a care home in Croatia which is expensive(how familiar!) and looking at the situation between the two of them, with flashbacks to childhood and the recent past
Reading wise I’m one dark tale through Charles Lambert’s Two Dark Tales: Jack Squat and The Niche, and it wasn’t as dark as I was hoping. I’ve just arrived on Skye, and pulled over for a beer at the Sligachan Hotel, a place I have been coming to every couple of years for almost 40 years... scary.
Just on the Highland Midge MK, could be they are related to those in Maine... they weigh only about 1/8000 of a gram, and have the fastest wing-beat speed of any animal in the world at around 1000 times a second. Luckily the cold is keeping them in their tiny houses right now..
Blog at https://safereturndoubtful.tumblr.com/, which is mainly photos. Though a warning that the most recent post should be X-rated, as it includes copulation..
Andy wrote: "Reading wise I’m one dark tale through Charles Lambert’s Two Dark Tales: Jack Squat and The Niche, and it wasn’t as dark as I was hoping. I’ve just arrived on Skye,..."
ah, beautiful skye,where as a child of 12 i first encountered midges, staying at Skeabost Lodge, in August. I remember the wonderful ferry ride, the Cuillin Hills all blue and shimmering as we crossed and then down came the cloud and it was drizzle for the next 6 days. Plus, Midges, faaasands of em......coming outta the air....
AB76 wrote: "The first real spring weather in the Shires, mid teens temps, mild overnight, all pleasent, the sound of birdsong and the buzzing of insects. The Ash and Oak are slow in 2021 but starting to emerge..."I have had
staring at me for months. (There is no room left on the shelf, and it has been sitting cover out.) Looks like I must take it off and get busy.
Last week I finished John Banville's The Book of Evidence and am still trying to work out what of the fictional narrator's fictional memoir is true and what is fake. Not sure if it fits the definition of meta-fiction, but that's what I'm calling it.Now I'm into Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. I was a bit concerned that a couple of my book club members said they couldn't get on with it. My heart sank further when I realised it's narrated in the present tense, which can be tiring. But it really pushed the first chapter along, suiting the anxious rushing about of the eponymous young boy. By the second chapter I was hooked.
If any of you have two hours to spare, i recommend this Storyville episode on BBC iplayer, looking into the death of UN Sec Gen Dag Hammerskold in 1961It hovers around farce and is an oddly styled documentary at times but starts to come to life with details of South African mercenary unit and its operations, with testimony from a member (who has now fled South Africa), a cold case murder of a young female biologist working for the mercenaries and more info about the killing of the UN Sec Gen
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The first real spring weather in the Shires, mid teens temps, mild overnight, all pleasent, the sound of birdsong and the buzzing of insects. The Ash and Oak are slow in 2021 but start..."The two colonial wars that the French lost are fascinating MK. Indochina first and then Algeria. Larteguy wrote a novel called The Centurions
which covers both, it starts in a VietMinh POW camp, where the french paratroops have been captured after Dien Ben Phu (the huge defeat in 1954)The Praetorians is the sequel to The Centurions
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The first real spring weather in the Shires, mid teens temps, mild overnight, all pleasent, the sound of birdsong and the buzzing of insects. The Ash and Oak are slow in 2021 but start..."Glad you saw my reply on last week's thread. Hope you enjoy the Crowner John books, they give an interesting view into how things worked back then.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, my local team Derby escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth on Saturday, and my birth town team Burnley did the same tonight with three games to spare. So it is a case of "and breathe"😃. And on a highly personal note, today would have been my father's 100th birthday, so if I believed in such things I would have liked to think he was looking down and smiling.
The Mexican Tree Duck by James CrumleyBy now, as I have read most of his novels in short order, I am getting well used to what Crumley does best, and where he is less good.
His hard-boiled PI books will appeal to anyone who cares about the imaginative use of the American language - descriptions of settings and weather, and daily incidents, are never dull. He writes brilliant sentences and paragraphs, making a full use of the language from the sublime to the most basic Anglo-Saxon. Here are some brief passages from Part 1, in which his protagonist and narrator CW Sughrue has settled in Merrywether, Montana and is working as a barman:
“…As far as I was concerned, the sun was something that happened in another country. I didn’t care if it came out. Then it did just to prove me wrong.
The first day, the snow melted like sugar in a golden shower. On the second afternoon, it was all gone, and I had hammered my few customers with free drinks until they mostly sat still and silent, stunned in the flat rays of the lowering sun that flooded the front door of the Hell Roaring, an autumn light alive and full of hope and glory. I played every Hank Snow song on the jukebox ten times. Two of my semi-mobile customers - an independent gypo-logger with a broken leg and a real estate saleswoman with a broken arm - had fallen under the spell of the gravelly romantic voice; they danced with clumsy grace around the pool table. I could have danced myself.”
Later, Sughrue is hiding out after taking his revenge on the bar’s jukebox, which to his disgust has been filled by Michael Jackson singles in place of his favourite C&W singer:
“When the cowcatcher on the engine pulling the 3:12 fast freight to Spokane hit the jukebox, the high thin voice sang one last empty screaming wail that died quickly beneath the thundering steel wheels. The collision filled the snowy night with an explosive rainbow shower of plastic and pot-metal, worthless quarters and inflated dollar bills that covered the pale parking lot like a hard post-apocalyptic rain falling.
“Absolutely fucking perfect”, I said to Solly. “Hank Snow would be ecstatic.”
“…we waited, as he said, for some real work, a job worthy of my talents, whatever odd sort they may be.
Survival came to mind first. Laughter, too, an ability to laugh through whatever vicissitudes life rolled my way, and certainly a willingness to be amazed. For instance, the wonders of Montana weather never cease to amaze me. The winter broke again, and Indian summer visited the scene into deep October. Another long-predicted snowstorm finally arrived two days late and seemed more like the fulfilment of a weather forecast than a prophecy of icy doom.”
Apart from writing passages like these, Crumley uses an astonishing range of terms, including acronyms (the character spent some time in the army - as did the author - so…) and words from Spanish/Mexican (the author hails from Texas). He doesn’t overdo it in a pretentious attempt to impress the reader with his learning - the words and terms flow naturally from the narrative. It’s fascinating (to me) to track down the meanings, but you can just skip over them without losing the thread, if you like.
Which brings me to what Crumley does less well… plotting. Part 1 of this book was as good as anything I have read by him - well-written, amusing, and with a small-ish cast of characters and a single location… but later on, the number of individuals and locations multiplies, and (as I have mentioned before) if plot matters to you, it would be a very good idea to write brief notes on each character as a reminder… otherwise you risk getting just a bit confused. As usual, I didn’t bother - and so wasn’t too sure what was going on by the end!
Another aspect which may be off-putting to some: his protagonists, oddly - since they are usually drunks who also partake of significant quantities of drugs - seem irresistible to the women they come across, so there are periodic bouts of vigorous sex… not that the descriptions themselves are prolonged or especially tasteless, though some basic language is used at times. Just a word of warning, then… I wasn’t much bothered, myself.
To sum up: I hugely enjoyed Crumley’s books, even though frequently baffled by the plots - reading such rich descriptions is exhilarating and leads you rapidly through the narrative. I’d strongly recommend them to anyone more concerned with the aspects he does well, as opposed to those who want puzzles with clear outcomes.
(One final point: it’s clear in this tale that Sugrhue already knows his ‘old friend’ Milo Milogdanovitch - Crumley’s other ‘hero’ - although Milo is not named. At least four references to Milo occur, with this one from part six being the clearest:
“…on my old partner’s fifty-second birthday… he came into Slumgullions’ sporting a brand new suit and announced he was off to the bank to pick up his inheritance, which had been locked up all these years by his crazy mother’s will.” )
Christine, or ‘Oreo’, in the 1974 novel of that name by Fran Ross, is a sharp-witted young woman of both Jewish and African American heritage who has a gift for banter. The heroine sets off to find the father she has never met, following a list of vague clues he has left for her. Ross served as a writer for the legendary Richard Pryor and Oreo is unsurprisingly filled with plenty of good lines, sprinkled lightly with Yiddish. Some of the gags are a little obscure, so you have to try to keep up. For example, one of her tutors, who has an aversion for nature, once told Oreo “that he had offered to look after a friend’s pachysandra over the weekend, an offer that was hastily withdrawn when he learned that pachysandra was a plant and not an elephant seer whom no one believed”
I enjoyed Oreo, which has justifiably had a second life in recent years. I think the novel is an intelligent text, and I regret that the author didn’t leave us more.
I’m now reading the second part of Don Quixote while I wait for a delivery.
Two Dark Tales: Jack Squat and The Niche by Charles Lambert
The second story is the stronger one here, The Niche, which is a type of horror take on Tom Brown’s Schooldays, set in the 1960s. 12 year old Billy is relentlessly bullied at his new secondary school. It is inevitable he will get his own back, but the interest remains as to exactly how. I suspect there are elements of the author’s own schooldays here, and perhaps experiences. He was born in 1953.
The first story is more humorous than dark. Though both are certainly worth reading, it is not nearly as strong as the excellent The Children's Home.
The Algerian Census of 1954 is a fascinating snapshot of the country, just before the Algerian War startedIts is notable the effect that WW2 had on the white population, from 1936 to 1948(when censuses were conducted),only 3 of the 21 depts saw a natural increase in the white population, almost 88,000 Whites left the country. I would suggest that a good number were linked to the military call up of 1939, where almost 5 million frenchman were called to the colours
These numbers recovered by 1954, but the total white population was lower still than in 1936.
Mod
I went there this morning for the first time since the re-opening and found a splendid Wimbledon birthday card for the younger of my tennis-mad grandsons. Sadly (from their point of view) there was no jelly - this is where I usually bought it. The elder grandson took some to school when they were doing 'tastes and textures' and I got lots of requests for the recipe from parents whose children had loved it 😉
I bought myself The Blessing by Nancy Mitford and an early William Dalrymple, In Xanadu: A Quest, which I haven't read before.
I just love finding a new novel on the topic i am currently interested in out of the blue: French AlgeriaA random google on french conscription linked me to a FSG article on translated and controversial french novel from the 1957:
On Leave by Daniel Anselme
It sunk without trace in France due to its controversially being based on discussions with returning soldiers from the Algerian War. Its a novel, not non-fiction and i'm ordering it now
Seeing David Guterson on this week's birthday list, reminded me that it's time for a re-read (actually listen as the library has it in audio) of Snow Falling on Cedars. This as we (here in the States) continue to deny there is racism of any kind. It will be interesting to see how this book holds up so many years (25+) after publication. It certainly caused a sensation then.
I am not one for recommending programmes but there is a documentary available on iPlayer called Ronnie’s that some might find interesting.Mainly it’s about Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and there is a mind blowing drum solo by Buddy Rich, songs by, Ella, Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Dankworth , Miles Davis....
But it is more than that for it’s the story of a man’s life interspersed with great music. There are scenes of London life in the 40s , 50 s and 60s, New York in the 50s, jazz philosophy, the never mention mental illness which haunted Ronnie and the tragedy of losing his teeth and with them the ability to play the saxophone and relieve his stress.
I found it fascinating to watch the clothes and hairstyles change and relive for a moment my days in the London jazz clubs of the fifties. I did visit Ronnie Scott’s first club in Gerard Street but hardly knew the one in Frith Street. I knew the Marquee better and I was always much more of a trad fan to dance the night away.
That Buddy Rich solo is just wonderful. I’m off to sort my record collection...
For some reason, GR is not putting up a comment I was trying to post. So this is just a test.
Working now, so here goes.
Raymond Carver: Collected Stories
I started the 80+ stories in this collection with strong hopes, having been impressed by his short biography of his father. I’ve read 20+ so far and am struggling to stay interested. Each is set deep in the middle America of the 1960s. Apart from a couple of dope-smokers, everyone leads a conventional life, and no one is particularly happy. It’s all a bit dull. None of the stories has a twist as such. It is more a case of a secretive action the character would be ashamed of if it were known, something that causes the character to drift away from telling the truth. The style is as plain as can be. If there is subtlety hidden in the plainness, I’m not seeing it. At last, the 22nd story had some weight. I will keep reading for the moment. Perhaps his later ones will be better.
If I jump ship, it will be to pick up the second and third volumes of Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy, much lauded on the old TLS. I thought the first one was fab, and the only reason I didn’t go on to the other two at the time was that, in my ignorance, I thought that was it.
Raymond Carver: Collected Stories
I started the 80+ stories in this collection with strong hopes, having been impressed by his short biography of his father. I’ve read 20+ so far and am struggling to stay interested. Each is set deep in the middle America of the 1960s. Apart from a couple of dope-smokers, everyone leads a conventional life, and no one is particularly happy. It’s all a bit dull. None of the stories has a twist as such. It is more a case of a secretive action the character would be ashamed of if it were known, something that causes the character to drift away from telling the truth. The style is as plain as can be. If there is subtlety hidden in the plainness, I’m not seeing it. At last, the 22nd story had some weight. I will keep reading for the moment. Perhaps his later ones will be better.
If I jump ship, it will be to pick up the second and third volumes of Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy, much lauded on the old TLS. I thought the first one was fab, and the only reason I didn’t go on to the other two at the time was that, in my ignorance, I thought that was it.
its not saving againseems to like short messages. i saved my post in word and will add it later
The Praetorians has reached an interesting stage where cosmopolitan Algiers with its bars, brothels, women and plotting has faded into the background and the paratroops are now down in the Sahara.
The urban world of factions, white settlers and the Arabs has been replaced with Touraeg nomads, caravans, camels, the deadly Sahara and the furtive oil exploration by the french oil companies
The para's are out of their element, jumpy and stressed, freezing by night and boiling by day but the intelligence officers tap into the local situation and start to do their work....
I include the prose of Larteguy describing the Sahara:
"Night fell,purple at first, then blue and the moon came up, not blank and round but a dazzling thin crescent. The paratroops had the impression of creeping foward through shadows the colour of faded chinese ink, which flickered agile and aerial,above and beside them"
removed all html...and it sent ok
AB76 wrote: "its not saving againseems to like short messages. i saved my post in word and will add it later"
I had the same problem yesterday. It seems to have sorted itself out now.
Dunno wot’s ‘appenin. Posted twice last night in response to @Russell, about the pleasure of re-reading Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy, as I did during the first lockdown. It seems to have disappeared into the repetition graveyard. Her novels are always a delight. I recall too reading Faith Fox, Crusoe’s Daughter, and the first of hers I read, The Queen of the Tambourine. Anyway, if this message doesn’t work I’m takin’ me ball home!
It's all right today Lass me duck :)
Lass wrote: "Dunno wot’s ‘appenin. Posted twice last night in response to @Russell, about the pleasure of re-reading Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy, as I did during the first lockdown. It seems to have disappe..."Thank you @Greenfairy. That’s a relief. Though I must get on dashing away with the smoothin’ iron. That was on the cards for yesterday afternoon, but the sun was shining (kind of, it was dry) so I lolled on a garden chair reading Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale instead. Looking out of the window it’s now chucking it down, so TTFN.
Parallels with covid:Swine flu has surfaced in Croatian novelist Vedrena Rudans Mothers and Daughters a novel from 2010, likewise in the Pla journals i read in March, the Spanish Flu was hovering over his memories of university being cancelled in 1918
A few excerpts that stuck in my mind from my reading of the latest NYRB:Sarah Blackwood on children’s author Louise Fitzhugh (1928 – 1974):
But being out in her personal life did not mean that she was out professionally. Part of perhaps the last generation of writers able to forgo the performance of self, Fitzhugh was publicity shy. The publicity that did exist for her books tended to cast her in a childish light—her author photo for Harriet the Spy depicts the thirty-something woman sitting on a swing in a playground. After her untimely death in 1974 of an aneurysm (she was forty-six), her image was straight-washed; her obituary described her as single, though she had been partnered with Morehead, and many of her friends believed that outing her would harm her legacy. Their endeavors were so successful that in the 1990s critics started “recovering” her queerness, a curious phenomenon given that Fitzhugh had lived her life quite out a mere twenty years before.
It’s strange to have to recover what should be common knowledge, but the queer history of mid-twentieth-century children’s literature is still being written. Fitzhugh was published by the famed children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom, who was a lesbian and who published work by Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak, and Arnold Lobel, all of whom were gay or bisexual. Even without knowing anything about the author’s sexual identity, queer children (and adults!) have long drawn comfort from Harriet the Spy , which, like Lobel’s Frog and Toad series, contains undeniably queer subtexts.
An passage from Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (translated by Walter D. Morris) on “civilization’s literary man” (Zivilizationsliterat):
The outlawing and expulsion of those who disagree is completely consonant with his concept of freedom…. Since he believes he possesses the truth, “the blind-ing-ly clear truth,” his love of truth is in a bad way…. He imagines himself justified, yes, morally bound, to relegate to the deepest pit every way of thinking that cannot and does not want to recognize what glitters so absolutely for him to be the light and the truth. There is only a “yes” or a “no,” sheep and goats, one must “come forward.” Tolerance and delay would be a crime. He believes he has to save his soul by not spending one more hour of even apparent companionship with obstinate fools who do not see what he sees.
Finished The Praetorians and i recommend it to one and all, important to read The Centurions first though. Larteguy gathers a mass of information and action together in the two novels over 600 odd pages and it covers a rough four year period from the defeat of the French at Dien Ben Phu(Indochina), to a cold day in December 1960 in Algiers.
Penguin have done some great work in republishing these translations by Xan Fielding, partly due to the fact the US Army was devoted to these texts in the mid noughties, in the Iraq War "surge", where arab tribes fought with the USA
Next up for me is major change from paratroops in French North Africa:The Radical by John Galt(1832), a novel of the pre-Reform Act politics in the Uk, of rotten boroughs and patronage. It should be a familiar read with the antics of the modern Tories....
Last night I dreamt of TLS reopening on the Graun site. Weird.
AB76 wrote: "Next up for me is major change from paratroops in French North Africa:The Radical by John Galt(1832), a novel of the pre-Reform Act politics in the Uk, of rotten boroughs and patronage. It shou..."
Hey the parliamentary expenses scandal didn't just involve the Tories you!! And whose expenses claims got shredded? 😃
Bill wrote: " The outlawing and expulsion of those who disagree is completely consonant with his concept of freedom…. Since he believes he possesses the truth, “the blind-ing-ly clear truth,” his love of truth is in a bad way…. He imagines himself justified, yes, morally bound, to relegate to the deepest pit every way of thinking that cannot and does not want to recognize what glitters so absolutely for him to be the light and the truth. There is only a “yes” or a “no,” sheep and goats, one must “come forward.” Tolerance and delay would be a crime. He believes he has to save his soul by not spending one more hour of even apparent companionship with obstinate fools who do not see what he sees. ..."I wonder who or what kind of writer he had in mind - politically conservative, the opposite, or something else altogether?
Berkley wrote: "I wonder who or what kind of writer he had in mind - politically conservative, the opposite, or something else altogether?"According to critic Mark Lilla, he specifically had his brother Heinrich, very much a liberal, in mind:
Heinrich had no complexes about being an engaged public intellectual. Thomas was more old-fashioned and felt no attraction to l’art pour l’art bohemianism or revolutionary politics. He came to see his natural detachment as the source of his freedom and the condition of all serious art. As he put it in Reflections , “The exquisite superiority of art over simple intellectuality lies in art’s lively ambiguity, its deep lack of commitment, its intellectual freedom.” To become committed is to abandon one’s post as an artist.
Yet in August 1914 Mann abandoned his post. His enthusiastic response to the war, though hard to comprehend now, was perfectly conventional at the time. Heinrich, by contrast, was one of the few German intellectuals to speak out immediately and publicly against the war and to declare his hope that Germany would be defeated and a democratic republic established. Thomas was infuriated by Heinrich’s position, which he dismissed as “ bellezza radicalism” and an expression of hatred toward all things German. Heinrich, in turn, dismissed his younger sibling as being out of his depth, writing to a friend that he “enjoys the war esthetically, as he enjoys everything.”
Heinrich’s existence as (in his eyes) a faux artiste seemed a perpetual challenge to Thomas’s sense of his own calling. In a revealing and very angry letter he wrote, “You cannot see the right and the ethos of my life, because you are my brother.” Heinrich showed remarkable restraint and never lost his patience. “I have been aware all along of the antagonism in your spirit,” he wrote, and he expressed hope that “you might realize that you needn’t think of me as an enemy.”
SydneyH wrote: "Christine, or ‘Oreo’, in the 1974 novel of that name by Fran Ross, is a sharp-witted young woman of both Jewish and African American heritage who has a gift for banter. The heroine sets off to find..."I loved "Oreo"! - so funny and smart. And plenty of Philly, if I remember correctly; always a bonus in my book.
AB76 wrote: "The Algerian Census of 1954 is a fascinating snapshot of the country, just before the Algerian War startedIts is notable the effect that WW2 had on the white population, from 1936 to 1948(when ce..."
Horne's A Savage War of Peace, which I've read several times (he updated it from time to time) is a first-rate narrative of the Algerian war.
Veufveuve wrote: "I loved "Oreo"! "I'm glad you liked it - I think Machenbach and Swelter have said positive things about it also, that's what put me onto it.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The Algerian Census of 1954 is a fascinating snapshot of the country, just before the Algerian War startedIts is notable the effect that WW2 had on the white population, from 1936 to..."
yes, i liked that too, it was a very violent and personal war for the french, more so than IndoChina where the settler population was tiny and was distant from France, although the PTSD among returning troops was high
Algeria was the "outre mer", a part of France for the settlers (Pieds Noirs) and so close to the mainland. I dont think anyone outside France can quantify how severe the impact of the loss of Algeria was on so many people, especially the 1 million Pieds Noirs who emigrated back to France
The saddest legacy was the algerian loyalists the Harki's who served with the french troops, they were butchered by the FLN once Algeria was free of the French empire and De Gaulle is culpable in my mind for betraying them
Wow.
It is easy to see, even after just a few chapters, why Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô would be adapted to opera (nod to Bill), theatre stages, film, visual art (Salammbô with her convenient snake almost seems a staple in Symbolism) and sculpture. The novel, so far, proves an immersive spectacle, while deeply Orientalist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienta...), of course.
In brief: Great suggestion of yours, Sydney! Still back on TL&S: https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...
Thank you, again. There are some elements which do not suit my current mood (not that many pages in, we already had: violent killings by a mob, crucified lions, as well as a female protagonist almost swooning in unrecognized lust like a visionary medieveal nun,...), but it is a great book. As ever, Flaubert is a master of both mass and intimate scenes, and the descriptions of both landscape and cityscape are so brilliant I find it hard to describe them. Immersive and sensual do not seem to cover it all.
Due to the Orientalism mentioned above, I also enjoyed looking at the images in The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting.
This is a very good catalogue, its texts engaging with Said's seminal work and related debates. So far, its themes all seem to tie in with Flaubert's novel.
(I used to make successive confessions of the elements of my err... excessive postcard collections on TL&S. Well, here's another confession: I also collect exoticist postcards - more from poco interest than aesthetics though. The medieval lion postcards I collect - happily non-crucified! - are a pure pleasure in comparison.)
Back to Flaubert's novel... I wonder how it will continue. Judging from its tone, the rising intrigue and the paintings I know, not too happily.
What do you as readers (I think there are some here) remember most of it? Or would that be spoiling?
Really interested to know.
Peter Carey's Theft: A Love Story proved an enjoyable read to me, as I wrote last week, less than 40 pages to go. But the ending threw me, so much that I have decided on a reread at a later stage. You know what it is like when you are blinkered along with the protagonists and then the meanings you assumed earlier get various new layers? That's what happened.
Though the ending detracted some of the pleasure, I would recommend it, still. You were interested in it, scarletnoir, and I think you might like it, with your interest in visual in art and not minding "earthy" language or (fictional) people with chips on their shoulders!
Last week, too, in a related discussion, I learnt a lot about vorticists from Tam/jediperson and AB76, but have not done the homework I intended yet: On reading your discussion, I realized I hardly know anything at all about this. Definitely something to find out more about!
Slawkenbergius wrote: "Last night I dreamt of TLS reopening on the Graun site. Weird."
I dream of that by day, actually. Bill is right in that we were shown out most unpleasantly and thus should keep our heads high and maybe not beg to get the place back, but I still would like to go back there... very much.
We will see.
Not least thanks to Hushpuppy.
This week's New Statesman has some very interesting cultural articles, one on the issue with the Phillip Roth biographer Blake Bailery and another entitled "The Fall of the Intellectual", wondering which figures in the last 30 years would qualify and that maybe the novel is the last refuge of the intellectual.....I am impressed how the magazine keeps being so consistent in the last 3 years since i re-subscribed. It had a reputation in my eyes for becoming far too reliant on poiliticians and being a in-house party magazine at some times in the last 15 years but Jason Cowley, the editor, is steering a remarkable ship
The french interviewee section of Anti-Semitism by Hermann Bahr is less impressive than the German one, there is less depth in the responses or breadth in the occupations of the interviewees that Bahr talks toAs usual his prose and style is brilliant, so readable and i love his descriptions of Paris abodes. The French interviewees seems to be oblivious to the real dangers of Drumont and other demagogues...
Georg- you were spot on about the french section...!
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Peter Carey's Theft: A Love Story proved an enjoyable read to me, as I wrote last week, less than 40 pages to go. But the ending th..."
The Guardian let us all down with its cancellation of the TLS and with so little feedback or reasoning. Its sometimes a paper that seems to forget who its readers are and i'm not a big fan of Kath Viner. There was no need to remove a cultural gem from its pages and am sure they replaced its "space" with more tedious identity politics.
I'm still a reader and still contributing a monthly fee but i comment about 90% less now, i am just not motivated to expose my thinking to shills and flamers in the sports and politics sections anymore
Bill wrote: "Berkley wrote: "I wonder who or what kind of writer he had in mind - politically conservative, the opposite, or something else altogether?"According to critic Mark Lilla, he specifically had his ..."
His brother Heinrich was the main target, but, afaik, it was also aimed at Romain Rolland (both were pacifists).
Have you read Reflections of an Unpolitical Man?
It is remarkable that Thomas Mann, who had until 1914 never written about politics, spent the rest of the war writing this highly political work, rather than finishing The Magic Mountain.
He must have felt very strongly about the superiority of German "culture" over French "civilisation".
Georg wrote: "Bill wrote: "Berkley wrote: "I wonder who or what kind of writer he had in mind - politically conservative, the opposite, or something else altogether?"According to critic Mark Lilla, he specific..."
Man of Straw by Heinrich is a superb novel, i felt it equalled anything Thomas had written and i'm a fan of early Mann from Buddenbrooks until the awful, tedious, pretentious Magic Mountain killed my interest stone dead
after just a few chapters, why Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô ..."Oh man, it gets so much better. I remember being a bit disturbed early on when soldiers throw the sacred fish in boiling water. To me it felt like an exercise in sadism. But what stands out to me are the later battle scenes. I don't want to say more, but make sure you finish it.
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Peter Carey's Theft: A Love Story proved an enjoyable read to me, as I wrote last week, less than 40 pages to go. But the ending th..."
Thanks for that (personal) recommendation - I think my reluctance to read Carey is linked to the frequent disappointments I have suffered over the years, when reading (or not being able to read) Booker prizewinners. (Some are fine, obviously - they're not all duds!)
I have added this book to my very lengthy virtual TBR pile - not the GR list which, for the most part, reflects books I have already bought.
Having been on GR since we all moved here, i dont find its a competition.....Read and discuss:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...
i would never, ever set a reading target, its not a job!
i have embraced recording what i read, although i aready did it on excel since 2007. i have avoided linking to my amazon account
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Wow.
It is easy to see, even after just a few chapters, why Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô would be adapted to opera (nod to Bill), theatre..."
Remind me - are you reading this in translation, or in the original?
I am in a period of reading French books in the original, as I can cope (with the assistance of online translation tools)... if I was to tackle this, I'd prefer the original unless it's too demanding... I have never read Flaubert, though much enjoyed Barnes's 'Flaubert's parrot'.
scarletnoir wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Wow.
It is easy to see, even after just a few chapters, why Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô would be adapted..."
I recommend A Sentimental Education was on my list for 15 years and finally read it a few years ago. Not perfect but it made me think and was a rewarding read
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Books mentioned in this topic
Salammbô (other topics)The Colour of Poison (other topics)
Salammbô (other topics)
Burnt Sugar (other topics)
The Siege of Krishnapur (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Gustave Flaubert (other topics)Gustave Flaubert (other topics)
Gustave Flaubert (other topics)
Gustave Flaubert (other topics)
Gustave Flaubert (other topics)
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