What are we reading? 16th August 2021

[Hushpuppy]

One interesting design page on book covers: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/why-do-s...

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I am reasonably certain that anyone familiar with the author will know at once who it is."

I had seen in my feed that you had started reading this (still haven't read the first..."

I'm sure you would have... if I had been a bit more on the ball, I'd have delayed putting it up as a book I am 'currently reading'.

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "One interesting design page on book covers: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/why-do-s..."

That's an interesting article, though not a great surprise to those of us who read Private Eye, as that publication frequently pokes fun at similar (though rarely identical) book covers. It comes as a bit of a shock, though, that some images have been used 20 times or more!

It seems the expert providing most of the information is one James Morrison. I was a bit frustrated to find that many of the links went to his Twitter account (I'm not on Twitter), though it's almost worth signing up to someone whose moniker is @Unwise_Trousers!

[AB76]

Berkley wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Clearly, despite his Nazi party membership, von Braun was considered too valuable (along with the other Paperclip engineers) to be locked up, and they were transferred surreptit..."

very true!

[Hushpuppy]

scarletnoir wrote: "I was a bit frustrated to find that many of the links went to his Twitter account"

You don't need to be on twitter to read the content of the posts. Just close the automatic - and annoying - prompt...

[Oggie]

Andy wrote: "Once Upon the River Love by Andreï Makine, translated from French by Geoffrey Strachan.
A coming of age story that ranks up ..."

I agree this is a fantastic book. It's also very evocative of the Siberian landscapes of the tundra and forest and the changing snowscapes. I remember one scene when Dimitri had to tunnel himself out of his house after it was completely buried in snow and wondering if that would be really scary or quite good fun.

[Oggie]

Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone!
I've been reading two novels with leading characters who are real people and much as I enjoyed them both, they left me feeling vaguely uneasy. I need to think some more about this. ..."

Remembering your recommendation I picked up a second hand copy of The Narrow Road by Christine Dwyer Hickey in wonderful Wigtown which is still on the TBR pile.

Is your unease in such books because it is not always evident what is fact or fiction?

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Russell wrote: "The Master – Colm Tóibín

This was impressive. It tells the story of Henry James in his fifties, covering the five years after the failure of his play Guy Domville, his move from Ke..."

Mach, there is another review of the new biog of Pessoa in the New Statesman, John Gray is the reviewer. Its quite a down to earth review compared to Toibins. A fascinating fact seems to be that Aleister Crowley and Pessoa knew each other, that made me do a double take!

I am intrigued by Zeniths book and may wait till it costs a lot less than £40 to buy it and read it.

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Mach, there is another review of the new biog of Pessoa in the New Statesman, John Gray is the reviewer. Its quite a down to earth review compared to Toibins. A fascinating fact seems ..."

some thing like that make me sort of wonder about the conversations between the satanic master of darkness and the quiet Portugese writer. Did they discuss the football? Maybe the beaches at Estoril? Probably something darker!

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

out of the stony depths [of a cave cut deeply into a stone mountain] flows Lethe’s stream, whose waves, sliding over the loose pebbles, with their murmur, induce drowsiness. In front of the cave mouth a wealth of poppies flourish, and innumerable herbs, from whose juices dew-wet Night gathers sleep, and scatters it over the darkened earth. There are no doors in the palace, lest a turning hinge lets out a creak, and no guard at the threshold. But in the cave’s centre there is a tall bed made of ebony, downy, black-hued, spread with a dark-grey sheet, where the god himself lies, his limbs relaxed in slumber. Around him, here and there, lie uncertain dreams, taking different forms, as many as the ears of corn at harvest, as the trees bear leaves, or grains of sand are thrown onshore.

Really tired, so saying goodnight with this quote from Ovid's Metamorphoses. (Hinges that don't creak are important! Though I must say I do prefer a bedroom with a door.)

It's nice reading up on what you have been posting today.
I will get back to you tomorrow. (Also, read a book for bibliophiles I would like to tell you about.)

Thanks for the info on Olive Ketteridge and Olive, again. I will be happy to follow your counsel.

Here's an image of "Grotesque animal heads" which Tam and some others might like: https://skd-online-collection.skd.mus...
They may be seen as nasty, but I think many of them do look rather cute! And one of the animals is definitely yawning... as am I.
Sleep well.

Edit: Typos... argh.

[Berkley]

Berkley wrote: "there was a novel titled Project Mars - and also a non-fiction work called The Mars Project, confusingly enough!
"

Actually not that confusing, it turns out, if you bother paying a little more attention than I did when reading the wiki entries: the non-fiction piece was originally an appendix to the novel, later published as a separate volume.

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "You don't need to be on twitter to read the content of the posts. Just close the automatic - and annoying - prompt..."

... except that Twitter thinks that I am my wife (some transfer of knowledge between our devices, presumably) and asks for her password. I could ask for it, but have never bothered!

So, no, I can't get in... unless I do that, or sign up myself.

[Gpfr]

Oggie wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone!
I've been reading two novels with leading characters who are real people and much as I enjoyed them both, they left me feeling vaguely uneasy. I need to think some more..."
"Is your unease in such books because it is not always evident what is fact or fiction?"

I'm not sure why it troubled me here, as in other cases it hasn't - Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy for instance, or Toibin's The Master which Russell and Machenbach enjoyed. And other examples set more recently. I can't quite work out what bothered me.

[AB76]

Thea Astley's A Kindness Cup (1974) is a lost australian classic in my mind, Text Classics doing great work again.

Set in late victorian Queensland, amid the cane fields, the sea and the northern heat, the plot involves a massacre of Aborigines twenty years before by a group of local men. A re-union to celebrate the growth of the town includes one man who took no part in the massacre, obsessed with justice for the innocent dead.

I'm about half way through and Astley has a real skill with words, its also a study in the female angle on the macho world of the frontier and the complacent, sneering approach of the men complicit in the massacre. They see it as an irrelevance, a subject to be dropped..

[Georg]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "out of the stony depths [of a cave cut deeply into a stone mountain] flows Lethe’s stream, whose waves, sliding over the loose pebbles, with their murmur, induce drowsiness. In front of the cave mo..."

I read the Metamorphoses when I was 17 or 18 (not sure why, maybe inspired by some bits of his Ars Amatoria we did in Latin?) and thought it was brilliant.

I'd love to re-read it, but haven't been able to make up my mind which translation to choose. One of the two older ones in verse, or one of the two newer ones in prose.

You might be interested in that website

http://www.latein-pagina.de/index.htm...

for the art inspired by it (2600 works). The text is Latin only, the chapter headings and captions are in 4 languages.
Just click on the book you're looking for in the left-hand column.

[Tam]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "out of the stony depths [of a cave cut deeply into a stone mountain] flows Lethe’s stream, whose waves, sliding over the loose pebbles, with their murmur, induce drowsiness. In front of the cave mo..."



https://i.postimg.cc/QxPtXkCz/downloa...

Loved the cat and the owl... Here are some more...

Francisco Goya: Capricho No. 43 (1799) ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’. The full epigraph reads
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.” - Goya

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Gpfr, I would like to apologize for not referring to your earlier "beginning" quiz (it's a good one - do take a look: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... - and you may also find one of the solutions to my quiz which is still open!).

I did remember there might have been a similar quiz here on eTL&S, but I thought it was posted by Justine, so I looked up, briefly, all her quizzes, and completely overlooked yours at the late hour I posted. Sorry about that!

[AB76]

With the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan i feel i should maybe read some of the afghan-lit i avoided like the plague, though the reading could be quite depressing, when considering what has been lost.

I have never warmed to Khaled Hosseini and his insanely popular novels, can anyone recommend his works, are they able to maintain perspective and balance or are they hoary old wives tales about what Afghanistan once was?

Ideally i would like an objective modern novel about Afghanistan,. highlighting the corruption and lack of resolve in the government and military, though that kind of realist fiction wouldnt sell well in the woke west i guess!

[giveusaclue]

AB76 wrote: "With the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan i feel i should maybe read some of the afghan-lit i avoided like the plague, though the reading could be quite depressing, when considering what has ..."

I may be wrong but I have an idea that finding an objective book (novel or factual) about Afghanistan may be difficult. I have thought a lot in the last few days of Macmillan's comment in 1963 (?) "First rule of politics, don't invade
Afghanistan."

Also Churchill, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "With the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan i feel i should maybe read some of the afghan-lit i avoided like the plague, though the reading could be quite depressing, when consider..."

The Soviet Union taught us it was folly in the 80s, though of course the west were funding and supplying the Muhajideen with guns,stingers and money

I like to read Arab literature and Muslim literature but i'm always wary of the kind of middle eastern novels that appeal to western audiences. Maybe as you say, i just will steer clear of Afghan fiction....

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

@AB: Sorry, never read Khaled Hosseini. In the next weeks, if you like, I might ask some people who have been living here for some years and are from Afghanistan as regards recent writers (translation is a thing, though).
I should add, as a disclaimer, that their lives here have not been very conducive to a lot of leisure reading, though they were delighted by the Persian literature we own and borrowed some - none modern, though!

(I know this is not what you are interested in primarily, but hope it is o.k. if I list these titles here, since I looked them up just now)


Nizami Ganjavi: Layla and Majnun and The Story of the Seven Princesses
Naqib Al-Mamalek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Ar... (no GR link avaiblable)
Saadi, Gulistan Saadi
Also: The Quatrains of Khayam (poetry, in Persian, English, Arabic, German and French), no GR link available, but some select quotes here: https://www.therubaiyatofomarkhayyam....

[Georg]

AB76 wrote: Ideally i would like an objective modern novel about Afghanistan

How would you define "objective novel"?

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Georg wrote:

I read the Metamorphoses when I was 17 or 18 (not sure why, maybe inspired by some bits of his Ars Amatoria we did in Latin?) and thought it was brilliant.

I'd love to re-read it, but haven't been able to make up my mind which translation to choose. One of the two older ones in verse, or one of the two newer ones in prose.

You might be interested in that website

http://www.latein-pagina.de/index.htm...

for the art inspired by it (2600 works). "

Thanks for this, Georg! What a lovely find.
Yes, it can be difficult to decide on versions. I read one of the prose ones as a student, but that must have been from the library. With Parzival, I felt that it made sense to read a prose version first... not sure about Metamorphoses either, especially if you already know them.
We now have two verse translation versions, by Hermann Breitenbach (Artemis publishing, 1964, also published by Reclam in 2001) and Erich Rösch (Tusculum). The Reclam one is the one I consulted in recent years for looking up something I had encountered in museums, for example.

You might be interested in another little volume by Reclam I mentioned the other day (the illustrations are black and white, so it does make sense to look them up elsewhere):
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Andy]

SydneyH wrote: "Andy wrote: "I am very steadily working my way through Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter . I loved this story collection. Definitely one for a reread!

@ H..."

And I'm only 20% through - looking forward to these immensely.

[Andy]

Oggie wrote: "Andy wrote: "Once Upon the River Love by Andreï Makine, translated from French by Geoffrey Strachan.
A coming of age story t..."

I recall that scene well also. It was what attracted me to the book orginally.

[Andy]

GBH by Ted Lewis.
Derek Raymond writes an informative piece at the end of this quite memorable novel.
Ted Lewis died 'of alcohol' at the age of 42. Raymond says that when trying to understand why he drank, it is necessary to read this novel , and his other work, like Jack's Return Home. Quoting further, as far as the contemporary black novel in Britain is concerned, Lewis was the prototype, the first of a generation. The first British writer of the sixties to take Chandler literally..

The crime story tips violence out of its vase on the shelf and pours it back down into the street where it belongs.

This story is about the the downfall of George Fowler, the king of a porn empire in London, who at the outset is prosperous and on top of his game. He suspects betrayal, a weasal from within. Whether paranoia or not, and along with his intimidating hardcase minder, Mickey Brice, sets out find and stamp the threat out, in the most violent of ways.
The novel's opening and closing are both quite brilliant. In the first pages George and Mickey 'interrogate' their initial disloyal suspect.
The denouement is sensational, Don Giovanni-esque and quite befitting.
Whereas Plender may have a sense of poetic justice, there is none of that here, it is far darker. The closing horrors may have been hinted at throughout, but are far worse than could have been imagined.
This is a Britain in the 60s that they don't teach about in school, one wihtout morals, one of violent crime, vice, corruption, hardcore pornography and BDSM.
Haunting and unforgettable.

Here’s a clip..

‘Bad news about Ray Warren,’ Mickey said. ‘Or for him. Or for us, temporarily.’
‘What’s that Mickey?’ I asked him.
‘His old lady. He phoned last night. She snuffed it. He’s staying up there for a few days, until after they’ve put her in the ground.’
‘Sorry to hear it,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I knew you would be,’ Mickey said. ‘You want me to organise a wreath?’.
‘Yes, I should do that.’
‘Shall I get two made up while I’m at it?’ he said.

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Tam wrote:
"I wonder how many here remember 'Thing' from the Adams Family?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEVB..."

Ha, NOW I do! Thank you. I only know the older TV series, which I have not seen for ages. I wonder if it induced many to become Goths later on?

Loved the cat and the owl... Here are some more...
Francisco Goya: Capricho No. 43 (1799) ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’. The full epigraph reads
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.” - Goya

Thank you! Goya is a favourite. I saw a wonderful 2005 exhibition of his works in Berlin (co-operation between the National Gallery Berlin, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). First came across him in more detail, strangely enough, on reading Lion Feuchtwanger's historical novel Goya and then started looking up his paintings, which was not too easy then, as pre-internet. Feuchtwanger was a favourite of Justine's, though I don't think she ever referred to this novel.

[Bill]

I was never one to drive by an ex’s house after a breakup, so since the discontinuation of TL&S I haven’t visited the Guardian of my own volition, though I have looked at the articles linked to here and, occasionally, in my other literary feeds. Michiko Kakutani on Twitter thought this article on “bespoke scores for novels” merited my attention.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

Of course, books have inspired music for centuries and in the 19th century it became acceptable to openly acknowledge the literary inspiration behind some instrumental music in titles such as Harold en Italie, Vallée d'Obermann, and Kreisleriana. Now we can look forward to Après une lecture du Dan Brown.

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

scarletnoir wrote:

I have a problem with THINGS, which always seem to drop out of my nerveless hands, or slither unaccountably onto the floor from the coffee table when I put something else on it... or just fall off, because they are slippery as hell and I put them down on something sloping at 1% to the horizontal.

I shout out: "F**k the (whatever)", but my wife is unimpressed, and blames me.

But we know better: it's down to "the intransigence of objects".

Ha, I wonder if you might like to show your wife Ellmann's essay, which refers to "the ostinacy, the indifference, the incorrigibilty of THINGS! The recalcitrence of THINGS."
She writes:

I speak as someone who is always losing THINGS, dropping THINGS, tripping over THINGS, breaking THINGS […]. Okay, I am accident-prone. But still, THINGS have a lot to answer for.

As regards first sentences, I tend to agree with you. Found out that I am pretty forgetful both of beginnings and endings (and the middle, too, of course... sigh) as I put the quiz together.

Maybe we could add as one further aspect that readers might tend to recognize the beginning really well if it encapsulates or at least foreshadows what is to follow, because the memory might return then.

[AB76]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "@AB: Sorry, never read Khaled Hosseini. In the next weeks, if you like, I might ask some people who have been living here for some years and are from Afghanistan as regards recent writers (translat..."

thanks shelf, i think i have Layla and Majnum somewhere, i thought it was an Indian novel but my memory is foggy!

Persian language stuff is good though, the Tajiks speak a Persian language and are quite influential in Afghanistan

As you say, translation could be a barrier to more modern stuff

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Ideally i would like an objective modern novel about Afghanistan

How would you define "objective novel"?"

Hmm...good question

I would suggest a novel that is brutally realist and unadorned by opinion, the kind of novel that can be unsettling and quite tough to read. i would try and picture it as a "flat style" where there is little moral weight or justification for actions.

The closest to this style for me would be Paul Bowles, whose novels have a fine layer of detachment from the characters depicted, they stalk on a stage that is viewed with dispassion and disdain by the pen of the author and create an unsettling effect.

Of course, to be scientifically objective from a work of fiction is almost impossible but a direction towards that can be applied..

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "I have never warmed to Khaled Hosseini and his insanely popular novels, can anyone recommend his works, are they able to maintain perspective and balance or are they hoary old wives tales about what Afghanistan once was?"

This is rather ambiguous - have you 'never warmed' to Hosseini after reading one or more of his novels, or just on the basis of reviews or a suspicion of popular authors?

FWIW, I have read two of his novels: The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and liked both, though it's too long ago to give a detailed review of either. The earlier book is rather more optimistic; the second is darker and a harder read. They are stories about families, set against the recent history of Afghanistan - Taliban and all. I don't recall them as being nostalgic, if that is what you are asking... but I could be wrong.

I get the impression that you prefer non-fiction, or novels focusing on background, rather than 'stories', so they may not be for you.

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I have never warmed to Khaled Hosseini and his insanely popular novels, can anyone recommend his works, are they able to maintain perspective and balance or are they hoary old wives ta..."

I'm more in favour of novels than non-fiction actually, i always read both side to side, so thats probably why i read a lot of non-fiction but i have always seen fiction as more important really.

As for novels, i am not too fussy with classic novels in middle age, i have read a lot in last three years that i wouldnt have touched in my 20s. I am a fan of plotless novels or novels that wander back and forth. I am not that interested in sex or violence in novels and have become very interested in female authors and how they depict social situations and relations between the sexes.

I also am interested in english language novels from nations other than the USA and England. My Australian and Canadian novel consumption has been consistent for a decade now, plus novels that depict the British Empire(by the occupiers) or have themes about it. Kipling, Haggard, Maugham, Forster and others have become favourites and She by Haggard is next on my list after Jewett

I did try the Kite Runner on a holiday and loathed it a long time ago but may try it again

[Gpfr]

AB76 wrote: "With the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan i feel i should maybe read some of the afghan-lit ..."

Not a novel, but a book on my wish list, winner of the 2021 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards: Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul. I can't say more about it than that I wanted to read it after seeing it on the Stanfords site.

[Hushpuppy]

Bill wrote: "since the discontinuation of TL&S I haven’t visited the Guardian of my own volition"

You and others might also like this Guardian article: ‘They deserve a place in history’: music teacher makes map of female composers (Interactive tool features more than 500 women who are often forgotten in the classical music world): https://www.theguardian.com/music/202...

Edit: Fuck GR really and their refusal to embed links to any outside page at the moment, makes no sense whatsoever when they allow you to include - as opposed to embed - the link anyway (unless this excludes said embedded links from some weird metrics they care about).

[Bill]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Maybe we could add as one further aspect that readers might tend to recognize the beginning really well if it encapsulates or at least foreshadows what is to follow, because the memory might return then."

It’s been bothering me that I didn’t recognize the first sentence of (view spoiler)[ Cat's Eye (hide spoiler)], even though I read it relatively recently. I think that it was intended to be a sort of epigraph that foreshadows or summarizes the experience of the novel, but for me it rather overstates the “time recaptured” nature of the retrospective narrative that it introduces (it also has a somewhat SF feeling to it which is not sustained in what follows). No doubt that was the author’s intention, but for me that opening sentence bit off more madeleine than the novel could chew.

In light of the quiz, I’ve also been thinking about what makes first sentences memorable.

There are some that make a generalization in a pithy manner that sticks in the mind: “All happy families …”, “The very rich are different …”, “It was the best of times …”.

Others throw the reader headfirst into a strange situation, “One morning Gregor Samsa awoke …”, “It was my eighty -first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite …”

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "With the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan i feel i should maybe read some of the afghan-lit ..."

Not a novel, but a book on my wish list, winner of the 2021 Edward Stanford Trav..."

thanks Gpfr

[Lljones]

Hushpuppy wrote: "... refusal to embed links to any outside page at the moment, makes no sense whatsoever when they allow you to include - as opposed to embed - the link anyway (unless this excludes said embedded links from some weird metrics they care about)...."

Here is Goodreads statement about external links:

https://help.goodreads.com/s/announce...

A security issue, apparently. It doesn't help that their own statement doesn't make it clear that it is only embedded external links that have been disabled. Amusingly, I was unable this embed this internal link as well.

[Georg]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I have never warmed to Khaled Hosseini and his insanely popular novels, can anyone recommend his works, are they able to maintain perspective and balance or are they hoary old wives ta..."

Ha! Read both ages ago and liked them . Recently I have picked up some vibes shouting (more or less): they are kitsch and liking them is really embarrassing.
Now I do not dare re-read them . What would happen if I still liked what people superior to me have declared to be kitsch? The loss of face would be unbearable ;-)

[Georg]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Georg wrote:I read the Metamorphoses when I was 17 or 18 (not sure why, maybe inspired by some bits of his Ars Amatoria we did in Latin?) and thought it was brilliant.

I'd love to re-read it, but ..."

I think it must have been the Breitenbach translation I read then. What do you think of it?
If I only could read 20 pages of Voß, Breitenbach, von Albrecht and Fink each I could make up my mind....

[Tam]

AB76 wrote: "With the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan i feel i should maybe read some of the afghan-lit i avoided like the plague, though the reading could be quite depressing, when considering what has ..."

I liked his book 'The Kite Runner' enough to have included an account of it in my 'Book of Hours'. It wont give you a top down account of what was going on though, as it is very much about the fallout of war and how it affected the ordinary Afghan citizen, so maybe not what you are looking for.

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”
- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner


It is a lovely, poetic, piece of writing. The main image for me is one of ‘forgiveness budded’. Forgiveness has all the potentiality of coming to full fruition, but it does not, in this imagery. It is a point caught at a brief moment in time. It is up to the seeker to decide whether there will be a flowering or fruition of the buds, or not. And, of course, whether there was enough fertile substance available, on which to sustain the budding flower. I liked the image of pain being an active protagonist, with its own identity. This quote is from a novel that documents the individual damage that can be wrought, when a society is racked by the process of war, in this case, Afghanistan.

Hosseini, as a native Afghan, documents the personal damage that is done to, and by, very ordinary people, but he also reflects the universal state of dislocation that is wrought upon many worldwide, when they are powerless to resist stronger forces that are determined, and better resourced, to bring about their own subjugation. This includes the non-combatants, those who get caught up in the middle of a dispute, as ‘collateral damage’ in the ‘background’ to war and of course these injustices are often caused by factors far outside of many a protagonist’s own control.

This is one of the main problems of forgiveness. It is often difficult, in terms of access to justice, to know what can reasonably be applied as a process of reconciliation. In this particular author’s book, the list of ‘the unforgiven’ also includes himself, as he has said that he feels guilt for avoiding the hardships that others he knew and cared for did not escape, as he had already emigrated to the US by then.

[Bill]

Lljones wrote: "A security issue, apparently."

I think I know why this ban was instituted. I had somebody (not a TL&S member) write a comment on one of my reviews. After a few lines it had a “more …” hyperlink that commonly shows up on longer comments. Clicking on this, however, did not show me more of the comment, but took me to an amazon page for a different book (I don’t think it was the author who did this, but perhaps a fan). I immediately blocked the user who posted the comment.

[Georg]

AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Ideally i would like an objective modern novel about Afghanistan

How would you define "objective novel"?"

Hmm...good question

I would suggest a novel that is brutally r..."

I very much doubt the existence of objectivity in general. When you look closely there is no objectivity in science, let alone in history. How on earth would you expect objectivity in a work of fiction?

And a novel striving for objectivity sounds like the most boring idea anybody could conceive of , imo.

I want novels to be partisan and passionate. Like "The Grapes of Wrath", for example.
Otherwise I'd read non-fiction.
I am well aware that I will be manipulated by both. But I prefer to be manipulated AND entertained as opposed to being manipulated without much entertainment ;-)

[Lljones]

Bill wrote: "Lljones wrote: "A security issue, apparently."

I think I know why this ban was instituted. I had somebody (not a TL&S member) write a comment on one of my reviews. After a few lines it had a “more..."

I try to remember to hover over embedded links - from anywhere, not just GR -- to view the full link in the status bar before clicking through. I've caught some dicey-looking stuff that way.

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Ideally i would like an objective modern novel about Afghanistan

How would you define "objective novel"?"

Hmm...good question

I would suggest a novel that ..."

on the contrary, it can be stimulating to read objective fiction, not all the time but occasionally.

I love passionate novels with blazing opinions just as much, reading Orwell on my holiday last weekend was superb, his attacks on the evils of communism and stalinism, reminded me of my anti-communist youth at the end of the cold war...it was all subjective but i loved it

and as i said in previous response, true objectivity is almost impossible but attempts are made

[scarletnoir]

Lljones wrote: "A security issue, apparently. It doesn't help that their own statement doesn't make it clear that it is only embedded external links that have been disabled. Amusingly, I was unable this embed this internal link as well."

Believe me, it is not an issue for those of us who have not a scooby what an 'embedded link' might be, let alone how to actually do the embedding! ;-)

[scarletnoir]

Georg wrote: "Ha! Read both ages ago and liked them . Recently I have picked up some vibes shouting (more or less): they are kitsch and liking them is really embarrassing.
Now I do not dare re-read them . What would happen if I still liked what people superior to me have declared to be kitsch? The loss of face would be unbearable." ;-)

Yes - who are the 'thought police' who step in to decide that an initially welcomed novel has outstayed its welcome? Probably the same ones who laud football managers one week (when they win) and damn them the next (when they lose) - or their near cousins, anyway! ;-)

I also agree with your points about 'objectivity'... and used to get my students to write an essay on "Does science consist of facts?" to get them to think a bit about epistemology. Philosophy isn't taught in UK schools, or in (most?) uni science courses, as far as I know.

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "Ha! Read both ages ago and liked them . Recently I have picked up some vibes shouting (more or less): they are kitsch and liking them is really embarrassing.
Now I do not dare re-read..."

for me there are levels of objectivity or elements of such in works of fiction or non-fiction but of course pure objectivity is like chasing a rainbow...

[SydneyH]

AB76 wrote: "The closest to this style for me would be Paul Bowles,"

I think Bowles could possibly be considered a writer of Horror fiction, considering some of his texts.

[AB76]

SydneyH wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The closest to this style for me would be Paul Bowles,"

I think Bowles could possibly be considered a writer of Horror fiction, considering some of his texts."

He is easily been the most unsettling of novelists i have read but i have liked them all so far, just one novel to go now which is Up Above the World(set in Central America) on my pile.

The early short stories contain deeply unsettling notions, "Let It Come Down" has the atmosphere of a Manchester summer but set in Tangiers, rain and pensive eerie prose, "The Sheltering Sky" mixes the awesome beauty and desolation of the Sahara with marital breakdown and illness, while "The Spiders Nest" set during the Morrocan liberation from French rule is probably his most straightfoward novel.

Location was what most attracted me to his novels over a decade ago and i read them with a few years in between, however its his style and the flat, edgy prose that kept me returning to him. He is the master of ex-pat Tangier experience.

I havent read the North African set short stories yet, so when i finish "Up Above the World", that will be my last Bowles to read