What are we reading? 26th July 2021

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Ha, I learnt a new term today - "leaded window literature" ("Butzenscheibenliteratur"), in context with a historical novel published shortly before the First World War and set in the Harz in the middle ages: Julius Wolff, Der Raubgraf.
I am afraid it reads like kitsch:
https://lueersen.homedns.org/!gutenb/... (German-language page)
But should it be over 30 degrees Celsius again while we are on holiday (please not), it might be just the thing for my woozy brain!


scarletnoir wrote: "Let us know if that's (Intrigue à Giverny) any good - I see it starts with a scene in the Marmottan, which was our favourite gallery during the 'Paris years'... we also visited the lovely garden and house at Giverny. Sounds like just the sort of thing to keep my hand in at reading in French."

Will do, scarlet! It might be a good fit for you, too - in fact, it was recommended to me for keeping my hand in and due to my interest in museums and visual arts. It is already in the much-too-high stack I am preparing for my Harz holiday.


Georg wrote: "My favourite made up word?
Tucholsky's "denkeln".

Love this, too! Thank you for reminding me.


Berkley wrote: "I haven't read Lost Girls - the premise and Gebbie's style of art don't attract me - but the best review of it I've seen came from the Canada Border Services Agency (Canada Customs), as quoted by publisher Top Shelf:

In a thoughtful letter from the agency, dated 27 October 2006, the CBSA stated that the "depictions and descriptions are integral to the development of an intricate, imaginative, and artfully rendered storyline," and that "the portrayal of sex is necessary to a wider artistic and literary purpose." They concluded with "Its importation into Canada is therefore allowed."

If I ever do decide to give it a try, it'll be mostly because I've found Moore's stuff to be pretty consistently worth a look, but this bureaucratic assessment by Canadian border control authorities will probably have played a small part too."

Oh, thank you very much for this, Berkley. I just found out I like the Canada Border Services Agency, a lot. This seems exceptional for border control authorities? At least to me.
Lost Girls is by no means an unreserved recommend, as with a lot of the 'top shelf' genre, it goes into various extremes, and also, the inherent increase of intensity (more people, positions, etc.) in the course of longer 'top shelf' works can get a bit much, at least for me.

What I liked about it is that it integrates stories from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass, (wildly) reimagining the events experienced by the "lost girls", presenting us their view of what happened in their childhoods / their adolescence and what they experience later, as adults. The setting, of the main time of narration, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War is very poignant, and the end (view spoiler)[strongly contrasts the loss of lives in the trenches with the sometimes franctic orgies indulging people's various desires and the sheer pleasure to feel alive. (hide spoiler)]
Moreover, I appreciate that, similar to Rushdie's essay "Is Nothing Sacred?" or Angela Carter's fictions, it makes you think about limits, about what is permissible (or not) in your view. Despite various violent and taboo acts depicted, in some instances the work clearly delineates the distinctions between phantasies and uninvited acts, thus foregrounding, overall, the importance of consent. This reflection on the genre's purposes and limits is a crucial meta-point of view, and may be what the border authority alluded to with the assessment that "the portrayal of sex is necessary to a wider artistic and literary purpose."
Anyway, this (edit: and, not least, the engagement with the traditions and rules of the genre of top shelf literature), is what made me rate it as worthwhile, even though various (in fact, a lot of the) elements are not at all to my taste, nor correspond to my personal preferences. (view spoiler)[Parent-child incest seems to have come up quite often. Also never keen on non-adults involved. I would be a hypocrite if not admitting to finding some scenes hot, though! (hide spoiler)]
I have also started rereading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz after many years, and might well take up the other two books, too.


MachenBach wrote: "Thanks for the reminder of that blog and the Gwen John works. I feel like I must have mentioned this at the time (since it would be so unlike me to keep schtum about it), but my Ma has one of those drawings, 'though the reproduction of the colours online is quite poor."

Ha, you feel right, as you did indeed: https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...
I remembered something about mothers and childrens' wiles, so I just searched for "wiles" et voilà (the "wiles" are in my reply to you). Could not find Lisa on the cat drawings in this thread though, so the two of you might have discussed this earlier.


MachenBach wrote: "You know you're not supposed to read and drive at the same time, right?"
Thing is, it probably would not make much difference in the degree of my bad driving...Yes, that bad! I do have a driving licence, but after passing the test, decades ago, I never gained any practice, not needing a car in any of the places I lived.
During yesterday's drive, we listened to an... interesting Top 100 of songs on mobility (https://www.radioeins.de/musik/top_10...).
Considering my driving skills, Memphis Minnie's "Me and my chauffeur" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N67dh... as well as Monica's "Chauffeur" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww2yu... came to my mind yesterday, too! Not sure about the pistol, for one, though.

(There are various pistols in Before the Feast. Won't tell if any of them go off!)
I finished reading it earlier today (I must have read the whole book twice, all in all, now, with the rereads of passages), and I liked it right up to the end. I can see it might not be for everyone or every mood though - it is not a hugely demanding read, but thoroughness and a good memory probably come in handy (so people might not have to reread it, like I had to - but then I like this re-view, too).


I would rather not expand any more on this here, but many thanks for your post, Hushpuppy .


Edit: I had left out Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland - curioser and curioser!

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "characters overlap, like for instance several of their pet peeves - Mr Darcy and Heathcliff."

I'm sorry wot, come again? What kind of overlap is there between the two, excep..."

I read that differently, thinking that the 'overlap' was between podcasts, rather than between those characters... @Slawk needs to clarify!

[Robert]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Ha, I learnt a new term today - "leaded window literature" ("Butzenscheibenliteratur"), in context with a historical novel published shortly before the First World War and set in the Harz in the mi..."

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Ha, I learnt a new term today - "leaded window literature" ("Butzenscheibenliteratur"), in context with a historical novel published shortly before the First World War and set in the Harz in the mi..."

Lewis Carroll gets praise for coining the word "chortle." The noise-- a mix of a snort and a chortle-- had been around forever. It took Carroll to give a name to it.

[SydneyH]

Robert wrote: "Lewis Carroll gets praise for coining the word "chortle.""

Wow, that's a great one.

[Georg]

Dear Lisa and Anne,

looking at the sharp drop in the number of comments since yesterday morning I am probably not the only person who expected this thread would be closed about 24hrs ago.

Would it be possible to have some structure re-instated again? Starting on a defined day, lasting a defined number of weeks

I do appreciate that things might come up unexpectedly causing a delay. Maybe, in that case, it would be possible to just leave a short notice. As it is nobody has an idea whether this thread will be closed in 10 min, or 8 hrs, or next Monday.

[Miri]

Hello everyone :-) It's been a while. Hope everyone is well.

Yesterday I finished "The Queen's Gambit" by Walter Tevis and found it utterly gripping with that clean, precise American prose style that I love so much. I hadn't watched the Netflix show (I'm watching now and while it is a fascinating and gorgeous adaptation, it is a little odd how they tweaked things to make things more ridiculous and melodramatic). I don't have the kind of tactical, analytical brain for chess (my mum said when she tried to teach me I would just play imaginary games with the pieces like figurines), but Tevis' confident, accessible style and clear passion for the game drew me in and I read over the games feeling the tension of a thriller. A lovely gem of a book.

My audiobook this week is "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. I re-watched Ianucci's "The Death of Stalin" recently, one of my favourite films of the past few years, and wanted to know more about the petty and horrifying dynamics of Stalin's inner circle. It is extremely interesting so far (especially for me - I never got to study Russian history at school, and my exposure has been mainly through Russian novels and films).

However, I have a small and possibly petty question about Montefiore. He constantly slips in... - I don't even know if they're misogynist, because they're so casual and mild - completely unrelated and unchallenged generalisations about women that I find bizarre. They keep jarring me from the book. Is this something he often does in his writing?

To give examples: he will talk about a Bolshevik magnate who exercises or wears a corset and will comment "so and so was vain like a woman". Or he'll talk about the petty personal fights of Stalin's comrades and add somehing like "they gossiped like women". These references are so casual and add nothing, I was surprised no editor got rid of them. It seems he's going for a casual charming wittiness that I don't see the need for in an interesting historical biography.

Furthermore, if these macho Soviets are doing all these "womanly" things so frequently, maybe these things are universal and not "womanly" at all? For example, this book is about a man who had his portrait hung in every important building throughout the USSR. This was a man who had former friends tortured or killed for perceived personal slights. If that doesn't prove that vanity is not the sole province of women then I don't know what does.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the long post and I hope you are all having a lovely week!

[[deleted user]]

Georg wrote: "Dear Lisa and Anne,

looking at the sharp drop in the number of comments since yesterday morning I am probably not the only person who expected this thread would be closed about 24hrs ago.

Would i..."

Apologies for the lack of information, Georg. Lisa and I are still getting our act together. I don't know right now when the thread will close. I'd be grateful if you and the other contributors here would give us a few hours and hopefully we will then be in a position to clarify what is happening this week.

As to your other very reasonable questions, we have yet to settle the future shape of the thread. Both Lisa and I have a lot of stuff on our hands away from the thread and I would ask for your patience while we decide what is and what is not possible.

Apologies again to everyone for not being able to confirm what is happening with this week's thread. Please bear with us.

[Hushpuppy]

Anne wrote: "Georg wrote: "Dear Lisa and Anne,

looking at the sharp drop in the number of comments since yesterday morning I am probably not the only person who expected this thread would be closed about 24hrs..."

Hello MsC - if that helps at all, it felt absolutely fine to me (perhaps others can chip in!) when the weekly Monday thread became a fortnightly one.

Best of luck with all that is keeping you very busy.

[Hushpuppy]

Miri wrote: "while it is a fascinating and gorgeous adaptation, it is a little odd how they tweaked things to make things more ridiculous and melodramatic"

Very good to know, thanks Cardellina! I know Magrat was also reading it, this time after watching the TV show, but she hasn't been active here for a while sadly. I was not bowled over by the TV series' writing, but the acting and cinematography/artistic direction were awesome.

I have a small and possibly petty question about Montefiore. He constantly slips in... - I don't even know if they're misogynist, because they're so casual and mild - completely unrelated and unchallenged generalisations about women that I find bizarre.

I don't know him at all, but I cannot see how your question could be "petty" whatsoever. In fact, what I find petty is the tone in these examples you've given us that clearly illustrate why you find it jarring at times!

[Miri]

(I still don't know how to quote! With apologies)

@Hushpuppy Maybe "petty" wasn't the right word. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a book full of jaw-dropping horror, a book that centres on one of modern history's most influential men, responsible for the deaths of millions... it feels slightly trivial that I was struck by the author's occasional mild... misogyny? I'm not even sure what it is because it doesn't seem malicious and the generalisations themselves are relatively benign (if annoying). If I was an editor I would have snipped them out though. It reminds me of when you read an older novel and there's just some really casual antisemitic comment or something, or like in "Emma" by Jane Austen when you're having a jolly time and then suddenly there's some horrendous anti Traveller sentiment just casually tossed in there.

(...I guess that said there's still lots of antisemitic and anti-Traveller content in books today though).

[Miri]

I also wonder if you've seen this fun parody of "The Queen's Gambit" TV show which gently skewers some of the problems I'm having with the (entertainig but flawed) show so far: https://youtu.be/GehT_c9F0Xk

[MK]

Robert wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Ha, I learnt a new term today - "leaded window literature" ("Butzenscheibenliteratur"), in context with a historical novel published shortly before the First World W..."

My favorite word is 'chary.' It creates such a picture in my head.

[Georg]

Anne wrote: I'd be grateful if you and the other contributors here would give us a few hours

That is beyond the point. I think I can speak for all of us: WE are, and have to be, grateful for the work you put in.

Now I know it will take some time I do not really care whether its hours or days. It is enough to have some info, however unspecific.

Agree with hushpuppy on the fortnightly switch. I'd even prefer it.

I also thought that your introduction was lovely. But I take an introduction rather like a bonus, it shouldn't become an obligation of sorts.

[MK]

Alert!!! Only five days left to prepare for International Cat Day -

https://rbkclibraries.wordpress.com/2...

[[deleted user]]

I am going to close this thread at 3pm.

@Miri
It's lovely to see you here! Please do join us at the new thread.

[Tam]

Miri wrote: "Hello everyone :-) It's been a while. Hope everyone is well.

Yesterday I finished "The Queen's Gambit" by Walter Tevis and found it utterly gripping with that clean, precise American prose style t..."

I can sympathise with your points about the casual sexist tropes that Montefiori puts in. I watched his series on the Hapsburg's and really enjoyed it. he is a good, knowledgable and enthusiastic communicator. I don't remember him putting in sexists cliches in that, though he made a fair few comments about inbreeding though.

Your right that a good editor could have snipped them out, but it is a generational thing on the whole, and it will take a while to educate us ancient dinosaurs, and indeed some wont ever be re-educated. I think it is perhaps too much of assumption that we can all change overnight. And it takes dialogue for people to see the benefits of changing their ways. Shutting people down wont, to my mind.

I'm old enough to remember when those kind of comments were two a penny, and hardly anyone thought to comment on it, so we weren't woke back then, but possibly too busy with stuff like fighting for equal pay/rights/opportunities etc. You have to pick your battles I guess, as hardly anyone has the energy, or the knowledge, or indeed interest, to fight them all. Good to see you back commenting Miri, I wish we had more younger folks on here. I still miss Alwynnes
thoughtful comments on books... I like to see new perspectives being put forward, even if I don't agree with a lot of them, they still make me think, and engage...

[Lljones]

Hi everyone, so sorry for the confusion. I think I had a conversation with Anne in my dreams and thought she'd actually heard it...:). Anne will be posting a new thread shortly and then she and I will have a real conversation to lay out the game plan going forward!

Thanks all for your patience and understanding!