Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 16th August 2021
scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "Have you read Farewell, My Queen? Yet another viewpoint on the world of Versailles-- Marie Antoinette's reader."No - indeed, I have very little interest in royal families, and tend..."
The reader was there for company, I suppose, while the queen was doing something tedious. About the same reason that a modern woman might wear earphones and listen to a "talking book" or favorite music while doing an errand.
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "While I have been offered (and enjoyed) some lovely desserts containing rose water, I can’t say I have ever been keen on chewing roses – much different from the protagonist of my current read, Luci..."Medieval illustration of the Transformation of Lucius. The Golden Ass finally returns to his original form.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...
a short time ago MK wrote about The Rose Code
when there was some discussion about codes, music, maths, poetry and I started to read the book a couple of days ago.Now I have something of a tiny dilemma in that I am very interested in Bletchley, codes, maths and so on I do find the dialogue dire and almost wince as I read for , to me, it doesn't ring true, it's like some young teenager imagining how people in wartime would talk, phrases are used that are far more recent in general conversation.
The actual story has some promise so I will try again today.
Dialogue is not easy to write, suppose that it's at its best when one doesn't notice it and it is integral to the thrall of the story.
CCCubbon wrote: "a short time ago MK wrote about The Rose Code when there was some discussion about codes, music, maths, poetry and I started to read the book a couple of days ago..."That happens to me, too. Dialogue in a novel set in another time can ring so false it makes my teeth grind... and at my age, I can't afford this.
I've been re-reading things while waiting for my next delivery, and I skimmed through my annotations in Great Expectations. I remember Conedison saying he liked the first half more, and I think there may be something in that. The first half makes it just about the funniest book I can think of, there are so many flashes of wit, without detracting from the drama at all. The second half is far more bittersweet and leaves me feeling a little heartbroken every time.
Robert wrote: "Charlotte Bronte's dedication to Second Edition of Jane Eyre:There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of..."
Sorry, Robert, and thank you!
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "scarletnoir (#164): Yes, Feininger was astonishingly versatile. If you ever plan to visit Quedlinburg, Feininger Galerie is worth seeing – they have some rare items. https://www.feininger-galerie.de/en/m...You can see from many of his drawings and accompanying comments that art, to him, was often fun. Not great art, I know, but I love his little wooden houses: https://www.feininger-galerie.de/file...
Usedom is great, we went there in my student days a few times. Don’t know the series you mention, as I am very much not up to date as regards more recent ones… more recent ones starting from the Nineties, ahem. Call me Jon Snow - I know nothing."
Thank you very much for those tips - I have no immediate plans to visit Germany, but will certainly bear those ideas in mind if ever we go in that direction.
As I said before, the TV series was interesting to me because of my total unfamiliarity with the geography of that region - it looked fascinating. The stories were far-fetched, and the most interesting character did not survive into the second series! I do love being able to watch TV programmes in the original language with subtitles, though - it brought back a little of the German I learnt at school and during previous visits to Bonn, Köln and Wuppertal.
CCCubbon wrote: "a short time ago MK wrote about The Rose Code when there was some discussion about codes, music, maths, poetry and I started to read the book a couple of days ago..."There was a half-decent TV series about women working in Bletchley a little while ago - 'The Bletchley Circle'. Not outstanding, but not bad - but I don't remember much maths being included, as it's difficult to dramatise!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ble...
CCCubbon wrote: "a short time ago MK wrote about The Rose Code when there was some discussion about codes, music, maths, poetry and I started to read the book a couple of days ago..."Robert wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "a short time ago MK wrote about The Rose Code
when there was some discussion about codes, music, maths, poetry and I started to read the book a c..."Oops - I don't want a spoiler here, so you may want to skip the next paragraph.
I found out that many of the people in the book were based on real people at Bletchley. If you are reading the book, (if I'm remembering correctly) the author writes about that at the end. I know I googled a name or two.
In the meantime, I'm listening to a non-fiction WW2 spy-type book that toggles between Bletchley and the near-East (mostly Egypt so far) - War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East.
Much listening to books for me as I have turned off the news. First it was a relief not to have that bombast around, but the feud between left and right (dare I say looney right?), and now the Afghanistan debacle. It is so depressing.
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Cabbie wrote (#154) Ah, you reminded me of The Post-Office Girl that I read a few years ago. Do you have any other Stefan Zweig recommendations? Ha, thanks for this! I don’t know thi..."My son read this, and here is his review on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., on our trip to see the Bruegel exhibition, in Vienna, a while back. As you can see he highly rated it, but it is his field, as a historian. I shall ask him if he still has the book and give it ago. I have been reading nearly only science fiction over the last few months. Some have been vaguely entertaining and quite silly. Tana Lee's 'Biting the Sun'. I'm sure she got something like vocabulistic 'gattling gun' that spewed 'chromatically' OTT adjectives. and shot them randomly into the text. My favourite so far is 'Semiosis', by Sue Burke, which at least has an underlying and quite interesting philosophical premise behind it. How do marooned humans, on another quite hostile planet, negotiate with an advanced and intelligent plant species, when the plant can control more or less all of their living conditions. Perhaps should be required reading for students of 'International Relations and Diplomacy'.
I am determined to have a break from the SF and feel like a solid dose of history, so perhaps Zweig will do the trick. My poor old knees are aching. I don't know why, as they have not been stretched or injured. I am walking like a bit of a zombie!... though this is not enough to engage, me as yet, in the horror genre...
The sprog is home for a week, so good to see him after all this time. I think I should just be a bit thankful for some small mini-mercies... Hope all are having a lovely last blast of the summer season. I never really got Charles Dickens, though appreciate he was a good writer. I had to do 'Hard Times' for 0-level, and I hated it... Sometimes you just have to go with happenstance and gut feelings I guess...
Tam wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "My favourite so far is 'Semiosis', by Sue Burke, which at least has an underlying and quite interesting philosophical premise behind it."First I heard of Sue Burke, adding her book to my list of modern SF to look for. I'm still trying to catch up on some of the older SF I missed along the way but hope to get into some more recent things soon, so recommendations are welcome!
I think many Dickens readers would agree that Hard Times is one of his less immediately enjoyable books. I liked it better my second time around, many years after the first, but it's probably still the one I'd advise saving for last if anyone asked me which Dickens novels they should try.
Forgot to add, looking at Sue Burke's wiki page, I see she's translated Amadis of Gaul! Might have a look for that as well.
Berkley wrote: "still the one I'd advise saving for last"Yes, I would say that Hard Times is his worst book. I think Great Expectations is an uncontroversial starting point for Dickens.
scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "in that vein, I have just put this one on hold at the library - Rachel to the Rescue. "The problem with people like Trump is that they are very difficult to parody, as they do a good j..."
The one we have now may be impossible to parody. How do you parody a stump with a carved-on smile?
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "With some effort, I finished reading Intrigue à Giverny, a French-language mystery novel featuring Monet and also addressing his paintings with some knowledge... What did your wife think of it, scarletnoir?Madame only reads a few pages last thing at night, and so is still working her way through the book - I have asked her to write a review when she has finished... I think she has mixed feelings ATM.
Intriguingly (!), at one point I had forgotten the title of this book, and Googled a similar title, to find Meurtres en série à Giverny: Polar by Christine Cloos, where it seems that a gardener working at Monet's house becomes a suspect... no idea if it is any good, or if it talks about the paintings.
(We both seem to be attempting to improve our French... my latest was recommended by one or two contributors, and is La Première Gorgée de Bière by Philippe Delerm, which I'll read in parallel with a couple of books in English.)
Tam wrote: "My son read The World of Yesterday and here is his review on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...,"That's a very good review, Tam... somehow, my own daughters didn't seem to keep the reading bug into adulthood, though I think the elder one is reverting a bit... As it happens, I have just yesterday bought my first Zweig - Chess Story - which I'll put aside until a day when I am feeling too cheerful. It should bring me down a bit.
Like yourself, I never got into Dickens (we had to study Oliver Twist at school - say no more), though I have much enjoyed a number of TV adaptations, especially 'Bleak House'. Perhaps this is not surprising given that his books were published as serials, with frequent cliffhangers! His stories lend themselves naturally to such treatments.
As for SF - I stopped reading that after adolescence. I can't suspend disbelief, and there's enough fascinating 'real science' out there to satisfy my needs in that direction.
Hotel Iris by Yoko OgawaNot long ago, I read and enjoyed The Housekeeper and the Professor by this author.
'Hotel Iris' is a very different kettle of fish (that's a daft joke, but you won't get it unless you have read the book...). I'll give a very general idea of its contents in the next paragraph, which some may regard as spoilers - so skip, if you like - but nothing as crass as the blurb on the back of the paperback edition, which gives a strong hint about the ending!
Edit: Thanks to giveusaclue for his advice on spoilers - I have now been able to hide the next paragraph.
(view spoiler)
Is the book shocking? It's certainly dealing with very different subject matter than the 'Housekeeper', and some may find the content repulsive... strangely, I found that Ogawa's cool and almost detached prose allowed the activities to be described without too much reaction apart from bafflement and curiosity on the part of this reader. I suppose my main thought was that, although the relationship described seemed somewhat unlikely, people vary so much in what they do and how they behave that it's not impossible to believe in the actions of the characters. I would be interested in others' reactions.
As for Ogawa - well, the book was definitely not boring (the main reason why I give up on authors), and so I'll likely read some more... eventually.
Bill wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I've been reading Billy Summers by Stephen King. What started out with great promise - a hired gun who writes his life story has descended into a story that is both farcical and b..."Bill, below are some vague spoilers, don't read on if you want to read Billy Summers...
I finished Billy Summers last night. I usually don't mind Stephen King including crossovers with his other stories, but it did bother me this time because it hinted at the supernatural. It could also have been Kings' attempt to draw parallels with other writers (potentially himself included) who go a little crazy and/or lost whilst trying to create their works.
As for the 'ick' factor, well there were certainly awkward moments where a middle aged man finds himself having to share accommodation with an unrelated 21 year old Alice, but Billy Summers restrained himself (for want of a better term) and was fully aware of the potential for Stockholm Syndrome and this was explained to Alice. The 'ick' factor comes much later on.
Did I like this story? Yes and no. The concept of a hired gun writing his own story seems a bit silly, but Billy's reflections on his time in Fallujah as a soldier and his early life were were very well recounted and lay the foundations for his development into a hired gun.
I didn't like it because at times it seemed farcical - I can understand why Billy would want to save Alice, in some ways to atone for not being able to save his sister, but I don't believe for one second that a hitman in hiding/on-the-run would have taken in anyone else, especially a person who was both physically and emotionally injured. I imagined Billy at least taking Alice to the front door of the nearest A&E department and that would be it.
As for the Melania mask and the mixer scene, I laughed out loud at the absurdity and said 'For God's Sake'.
One recurring element that came up regularly was Billy's notion of a 'bad man' - how this is used as a yardstick to determine if he would take on a 'job' as a hired gun and how this extrapolated to Billy himself.
I imagined Billy as some sort of Lumberjack, reminiscent of Dexter. Once that image was in my head, it wasn't going anywhere.
scarletnoir wrote: "Tu montreras ma tête au peuple... This was a slow read for me - not because I didn’t enjoy it (I did) or because it was poorly written (it isn’t)..."Great review. I read this a while back on your recommendation and loved it. I'm not bilingual, but my French is good enough for me not to have to look up too many words, hence my speed of reading. It was an excellent addition to all the material I've been researching recently about the French Revolution and I only hope that someone picks it up and publishes it in English.
If anyone's interested, my review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote (#212): "If you can manage a beautiful but anguishing read just now, I would go for The World of Yesterday..."Thanks for the suggestion. I'll put it in my "to read" list. Normally I'm a fan of what my book club colleagues call "grim books" and stories with unhappy or unresolved endings, but during the past 18 months I've had to change my choices and read more uplifting stuff. Bl**dy Covid!
SydneyH wrote: I think Great Expectations is an uncontroversial starting point for Dickens."In the first half of my reading life I never thought "I want to read Dickens" (or anything else written before the 20th c, tbh).
By chance my first was "A Tale of Two Cities". Which would probably be the last I would advise anybody to start with. But it got me hooked.
I am not sure whether I wouldn't have given up on Dickens straight away had my first been "Great Expectations". As it were it was the only one I abandoned around page 100. That was at a time when I already loved him with a passion.
So GE, by all accounts one of the greatest books of my favourite writer, sat on a shelf , unread, for many years, while I re-read some of his other books.
Last week I dusted it off. I am now half way through. And I still feel there is something missing. Or rather: that I cannot see what everybody else can.
Veufveuve wrote: "Yesterday I began Iris Origo's "The Merchant of Prato: Daily Life in a Medieval Italian City," based on the remarkable archives of Francesco di Marco Datini - 500 ledgers and account books, 140,000..."I also found the Merchant of Prato a great read. There were so many details of every day life . I was particularly fascinated by all the trades and processes necessary to make and dye cloth, and other incredibly varied and colourful materials used to make their fantastic clothes, such as mouse fur lining for the winter. The merchant diversified his trade as possible which was one of the reasons for his success .
I was also mazed how easily he and his employees literally walked or trotted between their branch offices in Avignon, Pisa and Barcelona.
On the theme of historical international trade from the very beginning to the present day is The Boundless Sea by David Abulafia. It's full of so many fascinating details I wish I had kept note of them. Abulaafia begins with the Polynesians who , several thousand years before everyone else could navigate their way to land out of sight, by observing changing patters of clouds, flights of birds , the smell of the sea and system which assumes the boat remains still and the rest of the world moves.
Much of the trade in the Ancient Near East was in frankincense and mhyrr. The Sumerians invented the first written language around 3000 Bc and bilingual Sumerian / Akkadian dictionaries have been found, and Akkadian tablets of exchanges between merchants complaining of late payments. People lived in diverse communities up and down the Red Sea and there were quite a few women shipowners in Berenike.
He also talks about the Vikings, settling Iceland, then Greenland before trying to set up home in Eastern Canada. They were initially chased from there by the locals, returned a
a few decades later when they fought amongst themselves , including the women , and left again for good.
I am now reading about the beginnings of Portuguese expansion in the 15th century, settling islands of Madeira and the Azores, previously unoccupied, enslaving people from the Canaries, and now working their way down the West coast of Africa.
Abulafia is an academic historian but this book is very accessible and lightly written. I am reading from beginning to end but it could be read in part if one particular region of the world or period was of interest.
Can't quite let go the first sentences/ opening passages yet and, this morning on walking downstairs, thought of this: Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.Tam, what a lovely post (#225) - and your sprog writes excellent reviews! Thank you.
Have to see my dentist now, but should be back later with some time to chat a bit.
Cabbie wrote: "I read this a while back on your recommendation and loved it. I'm not bilingual, but my French is good enough for me not to have to look up too many words, hence my speed of reading.Ha! Well, thanks for that - I'm delighted you enjoyed it, as did I - thought my 'recommendation' was more along the lines of this being a 'want to read', as you finished it before I did (or maybe I'd already started?) It's an excellent book, though I still prefer Un certain M. Piekielny by the same author, which contained 'too much Désérable' for some critics. I'd counter that 'Tu montreras....' suffers from 'too little Désérable', but we're all different.
I agree 100% that Désérable deserves to be translated into English - considering all the dross about, I'm shocked that he hasn't yet found a publisher, as far as I know.
I'm impressed with how quickly you read it - I'd guess that your French is better than mine - but did you also pause to research the characters, or maybe you already knew a lot about the Terror? I didn't have much detailed background at all on that.
scarletnoir wrote: "I'd guess that your French is better than mine - but did you also pause to research the characters, or maybe you already knew a lot about the Terror?...."I already knew about Charlotte Corday and Marie Antoinette. I've been doing quite a bit of Revolution research recently and so knew about Robespierre and the question of whether he was shot or tried to commit suicide. Because of the previous research I knew a bit about the Girondins but had to do a double check. I had no idea who the scientist was (his name escapes me now). I think the worst was the executioner's story for which I had to translate several words. That's a picture difficult to forget.
I found the language fairly easy, probably because I read French (like most English students from the 70s/80s we read widely and conversed little). But I was also helped by the research I'd already done - the French equivalent of the British Library has quite a lot of stuff online, including the various revolutionary Constitutions and, most helpful for language, copies of Père Duchèsne, the political paper of the time that's written in the vernacular by Hébert. This was the man who took control of 9-yr-old Louis Charles and persuaded him to accuse his mother, Marie Antoinette, of incest. Hébert himself was guillotined during the Terror.
Anyway, I really am grateful for the suggestion. It's one of the best things I've read this year. If only Désérable would write a book using transcripts of trials....
scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "My son read The World of Yesterday and here is his review on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...,"That's a very good review, Tam... somehow, my own daught..."
Alas I have enquired of the sprog, and he only has 'The World of Yesterday' on his kindle, in Barcelona, so I will enquire and maybe order through the library if they can get hold of it. Like you I have seen a few adaptions of Dickens. A memorable one was a series on Great Expectations, many years ago, but I somehow always remain aloof from the structure of his stories, they seem so staged somehow. I was secretly quite pleased to see in amongst the 'memorable openings of books' debate last week that J D Salinger had skewed him somewhat in the opening of 'Catcher in the Rye' I had forgotten that.
As to SF, well to me, its a bit like magical realism sometimes. It gives an ability to, potentially, rub ideas up against each other that in a 'realist' world would be very unlikely to be put together as they have often a geographic or historic chasm between them. I'm not a fan of fantasy per se. But I like to keep up with writers that like playing with ideas in a creative way.
The best bit of my O level was a short book of SF stories where each one was like a tiny jewel or 'what if' ideas, that were being tossed about by the authors as if they were impersonating a 'cheshire cat' toying with a recalcitrant mouse. Alas I no longer have the book, or remember the title as I'd love to read it again.
I'm the only book reader in my family. I was fed by the local library, and to a lesser extent my old grammar school, and the 'old school' teachers expectations... My siblings would always prefer to read a 'do-it-yourself' or a motorbike manual... I was always the odd one out... but really my love is for art mostly... 'the art of ideas' as well as the 'ideas of art'.. I like to see them snuggle up together, and sometimes let fly with a hissy fit when provoked by the 'otherness' of their companions, like a bunch of kittens on the rampage...
Georg wrote: "Last week I dusted it off. I am now half way through. And I still feel there is something missing. Or rather: that I cannot see what everybody else can."I have to say that Great Expectations is not one of my favorite Dickens - relatively short for this author, for me it lacks the abundant sense of life his better, bigger novels achieve. I might be tempted to attribute that, as well, to the fact that it limits its POV to the first person narrator, but that's also true of David Copperfield, which very much conveys that sense of a populous, living world.
Veufveuve wrote: "Charlotte Bröntes letters do not give the impression of a humourless person at all."Not at all. She had a good sense of humor. I own an edition of her letters from the 1920s, bound in purple suède with a stamped design!
Georg wrote: re Great Expectations"Last week I dusted it off. I am now half way through. And I still feel there is something missing. Or rather: that I cannot see what everybody else can...."
I'm with you there Georg. I was hugely disappointed with it - what was I missing?
I really loved Dickens' American Notes and would recommend it as interesting and informative about the America of the 1840s, as well as showing Dickens in a very sympathetic light.
I managed to read a third of The Rose Code before abandoning the book, not for me but expect many others will enjoy the book.I did get something out of the book in that I have become quite fascinated with one of the codes - the Vigenere cipher. It seems pretty straightforward to encrypt or decode if one knows the key and I am amusing myself learning how to break it without knowing. The cipher is alphabetically based but one can give letters a numerical value (mod 26) if, like me, one finds it easier.
Got to keep the old grey cells working.
Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "Last week I dusted it off. I am now half way through. And I still feel there is something missing. Or rather: that I cannot see what everybody else can."I have to say that [book:Gre..."
Yes, that might go some way to put my vague feeling into words. Everything seems so subdued, compared to his earlier books. And, so far, I can't even love Pip very much.
I am glad that I am not the only one who is missing something.
Thanks, Frances, for the recommendation. Looks like I shouldn't have skipped the American part in Martin Chuzzlewit to start with.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Right, will be offline-ish till Monday evening...enjoy your books guys and gals....its uncling timeAm taking the Thea Astley novel A Kindness Cup with me b..."
spot on Georg! apologies,good joke!
Back in the saddle, four days of family fun on the Hampshire coast with my 6 yr old neice and rest of the familyFeel tired and sun blasted but its been a lot of fun, the little one has been on good form. Picking blackberries was great fun under the gentle sun, uncle arms being used to find the fattest, tastiest blackberries
As for reading, only managed an LRB article on Pessoa and a few letters of Orwells from a book in the bookcase, plus, of course, Topsy and Tim go the the seaside!!
Tam (#225) Great review of your son’s on Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, as I wrote earlier. He makes very good points; I would agree as regards both the strengths and limitations. (And when I should feel my brain, hopefully, back to old form at some point, I might expand… Just so much for now: As regards Zweig’s novellas, I thought the one partly set in India the weakest.)As you can’t get hold of Zweig’s book for now, I wonder if you would be interested in Marina Warner’s Indigo, which is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Tempest, which I think you like a lot, too? Not a history book, but concerned with reviewing (colonial) history from a different (also feminist) angle. It is a while since I read it, but I thought it was great, and Marina Warner has written quite a number of books, those of which I read I liked very much.
I don’t read much science fiction, though when I do, I often happen to like it, especially if it came as a recommend.
Perhaps [Sue Burke’s [book:Semiosis|35018907]] should be required reading for students of 'International Relations and Diplomacy'.Ha!
Sorry your knees are aching. I hope you will get better soon. Mr B, who did not want to be operated upon, has been schooled in movements by a specialized physiotherapist and thus was able to hike and climb really well again these last weeks. Really happy about this, it was hard to see him in pain. I know it can be annoying if people advise you all the time on what else you might do… Just saying, and sending best wishes!
Bruegel exhibition, in Vienna,I am so glad you could go there and enjoy this together! I find that memories of this kind (beautiful art I was lucky to see) really do help (as well as, with regard to dreams of coffee houses, a little new milk frothing device I bought when more of the shops were open again)!
Even better that your sprog is able to visit you, at last! Will visit family again, too, at the end of this week.
Berkley wrote (#227)
Forgot to add, looking at Sue Burke's wiki page, I see she's translated Amadís of Gaul! Might have a look for that as well.Really enjoyed this one (ages ago), in connection with Don Quixote, though in a different translation (the one linked here: Amadis of Gaul: Books I and II).
scarletnoir wrote (#230)
(We both seem to be attempting to improve our French... my latest was recommended by one or two contributors, and is La Première Gorgée de Bière by Philippe Delerm, which I'll read in parallel with a couple of books in English.)Yes, though I would think you have much less room for improvement there! The Delerm was a recommend by auroreborealis and then recommended here by me – it is a lovely read, beautiful language, setting, mood.
Hope (for her sake) your wife will enjoy the Giverny book, and thanks for any report!
Intriguingly (!), at one point I had forgotten the title of this book, and Googled a similar title, to find Meurtres en série à Giverny: Polar by Christine Cloos, where it seems that a gardener working at Monet's house becomes a suspect... no idea if it is any good, or if it talks about the paintings.
Ha, suspect gardeners/ domestics are such a cliché that I always hope the solution lies in a different direction! You, too?
Thank you for the Ogawa review – I would be interested in reading more than her The Housekeeper and the Professor as well.
Cabbie wrote (#235)
Normally I'm a fan of what my book club colleagues call "grim books" and stories with unhappy or unresolved endings, but during the past 18 months I've had to change my choices and read more uplifting stuff. Bl**dy Covid!You can say that again! I get it, absolutely.
Robert wrote (#217)
Medieval illustration of the Transformation of Lucius. The Golden Ass finally returns to his original form. https://www.facebook....Sorry, Robert, I can’t access this page (Maybe because I do not have a facebook account? Anyone else having problems with this?) If it’s not too much trouble, is there another link or way I can see the image? In any case: Thank you.
Cabbie wrote: "I already knew about Charlotte Corday and Marie Antoinette. I've been doing quite a bit of Revolution research recently and so knew about Robespierre and the question of whether he was shot or tried to commit suicide. Because of the previous research I knew a bit about the Girondins but had to do a double check. I had no idea who the scientist was (his name escapes me now). I think the worst was the executioner's story for which I had to translate several words. That's a picture difficult to forget."Thanks for your response - you certainly knew more of the players than I did - I had never heard of the Girondins or Montagnards, or Hébert, for example... just the 'big names' such as Corday, Marie Antoinette, Danton, Robespierre and a few others... and I didn't know the term 'Monsieur de Paris' - I thought it might be a bit of black humour if someone opened a men's clothes shop in the UK with that name!
On the other hand - I knew the scientist very well - his name was Lavoisier - though I hadn't understood the full range of his achievements. Very impressive.
I found it interesting and pretty cunning that one chapter was given over to purely fictional characters from Victor Hugo and Pierre Michon - Désérable having a bit of fun there... I wonder how many readers took that chapter at face value, and thought the personalities were historical rather than fictional?
Tam wrote: "I was secretly quite pleased to see in amongst the 'memorable openings of books' debate last week that J D Salinger had skewed him somewhat in the opening of 'Catcher in the Rye' I had forgotten that.Hi Tam - you may not remember, but I was the one who posted Salinger's opening from 'Catcher' - I can't help it - I have always been a bit of a contrarian or stirrer, and in any case I do really love those lines!
As for SF, magic realism, fantasy, ghosts, anything not 'realistic' - I can't enjoy those books. I have a pretty narrow range, really... it's just about tolerable if someone writes passages in which there are 'maybe' ghosts, but also 'maybe' they are hallucinations... but those authors had better not push their luck! I'm totally baffled that some seem to 'like' dystopian novels - we're living through a real-world dystopia right now (in terms of the climate crisis), and our leaders need to do something about it, but don't seem either inclined to do so or to have the vision needed. Why add fictional misery to those very real concerns?
As for family readers - one of my grandfathers would read as he took long country walks - not the most practical way to avoid falling over, I'd have thought... his daughter (my mother) is a big reader, and now that she can no longer see, gets through audiobooks at an alarming rate. My father also read a lot, as does my wife... but not our daughters. Ah, well - but they're lovely otherwise!
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "The Delerm was a recommend by auroreborealis and then recommended here by me – it is a lovely read, beautiful language, setting, mood.Well, thanks for that recommendation - and I sort of remembered that AB was probably one of the others to mention the book... I'm enjoying it very much, which won't prevent me from making a few nit-picking and pettifogging points on where we part company on how to pod peas (for example)! (Pity AB did not join us here...)
I would also hope that the gardener didn't do it... I suspect the original 'Queen of Crime' Agatha Christie spread the guilt across the social classes in her tales; it would have been too predictable if it was always the posho, though it often was...
As for the Ogawa, I hope there was enough information for you and others to judge if it's something you might enjoy - very different to the 'Housekeeper' in content, if not in quality of writing.
scarletnoir wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "The Delerm was a recommend by auroreborealis and then recommended here by me – it is a lovely read, beautiful language, setting, mood.Well, thanks for that recomme..."
Hey. been away from the computer since Friday, so just spotted this., which book was it?
scarletnoir wrote: I'm enjoying it very much, which won't prevent me from making a few nit-picking and pettifogging points on where we part company on how to pod peas (for example)! (Pity AB did not join us here...)I am glad, and looking forward to the nit-pickings, pettifoggings etc. (great words, aren't they?)! Yes, it would be great if AuroreBorealis' élan and ésprit were present here, too.
it would have been too predictable if it was always the posho, though it often wasTcha! And/ or the repressed clergyman. Or, as Dorothy L. Sayers satirized it once, "the evil Chinaman"...
AB wrote:
Hey. been away from the computer since Friday, so just spotted this., which book was it?Hello, welcome back from 'uncling'! Sounds wonderful.
The book by Delerm is a series of vignettes that was recommended by AuroreBorealis, La première gorgée de bière et autres plaisirs minuscules, also translated into English as The Small Pleasures Of Life.
Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "As for reading, only managed an LRB article on Pessoa."Was that a review of the Zenith biography? If so, what did they say?
I'm tempted, but 1088 pages is about 888 pages more than I..."
It was a favourable review and re- opened my interest in his masterwork "The Book of Disquiet" as i had clearly not realised how different the three translations out there are from each other. More based on structure and length than the actual prose.
Zenith delves into the heteronyms that Pessoa used, alter-egos and an interesting revelation about invented letters from his youth where he seems to have had a lot of imaginary correspondence. His english language poetry was discussed and his possible homoerotic desires(expressed in poetry).
Toibin is the reviewer and dwells on Lisbon and that novel in the review,alongside Zeniths observations on Pessoa and his politics and unusual lifestyle.
My reading was occasionally disturbed by shrieks and a small human of six years old landing on my lap and sending the LRB flying, so apologies if i seem vague. In some ways it was more a review of Pessoa the man by Toibin, in his usual readable style.
On length, i agree , 1000 pages on a prolific author with a chaotic life (Hemmingway possibly) would not put me off but with some writers, it seems over indulgent, though I feel Pessoa deserves my time,at some point..
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: I'm enjoying it very much, which won't prevent me from making a few nit-picking and pettifogging points on where we part company on how to pod peas (for example)! (Pity AB did no..."Aha you meant Aurora not me...got it!
AB76 wrote: "Hey. been away from the computer since Friday, so just spotted this., which book was it?"La première gorgée de bière et autres plaisirs minuscules - the short pieces have a lovely feel to them. Some are quite poetic and/or idiomatic, so I'll need some online help again to fully understand them.
Ah - just seen your other comment - sorry, I was indeed abbreviating auroreborealis as that's a long old type! It wasn't you, guv.
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote (#250): "scarletnoir wrote (#230)(We both seem to be attempting to improve our French... my latest was recommended by one or two contributors, and is La Première Gorgée de Bière by Philippe Delerm..."
Whoever first recommended it, thanks, it's on my list now.
Oggie wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "Yesterday I began Iris Origo's "The Merchant of Prato: Daily Life in a Medieval Italian City," based on the remarkable archives of Francesco di Marco Datini - 500 ledgers and acco..."I finished "The Merchant of Prato" last night, and what a very fine book it turned out to be. Not a biography, and with a thematic rather than a chronological structure. Nonetheless, the picture of Francesco the man, which is so painstakingly built, is wonderfully full, rich, and rounded. Irascible, vain, contradictory, stubborn; an unlikeable man, in many ways, and yet one who was clearly loved, including, perhaps, by the author.
Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Toibin is the reviewer."Quelle surprise! I can imagine the commissioning editor giving him a bell: "Colm, fancy reviewing a book?", "Do I get to explore my love of Iberian cities?", ..."
Lol....so true!
Have just finished Jonathan Coe’s Mr Wilder and Me. There may be something in my eye.
Need to get back in the reading saddle, its been almost 5 days since i picked up a novel or a non-fiction work and read it for more than about 5 mins. But that was due to a visiting neice and therefore isnt bad at all, though i feel rather tired and still one day to go lol.
I must say, Sandya, the The Country of the Pointed Firs is wonderful so far,idyllic and robust in its New England colours, phrases and outlook. The Captain and his tales in the schoolhouse and the trip to the island were brilliantly done. Next up is the chapter entitled " William", so still a lot to read.
Mailer and the Moon landings has been great so far too and still got Astleys aussie novel to finish as well
its all gone very quiet, 4 hours since the last postwatched The Martian as i chilled with the little one asleep and was impressed with the film, has anyone read the book?
Has anyone enjoyed anything by Denis Johnson other than Jesus' Son and Train Dreams? Just wondering because he has other short books.
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I remember hearing lots about Love Story as a kid in the early 70s but if for some reason I decide I simply must read something by Erich Segal, this one sounds much more fun.