Ersatz TLS discussion
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What are we reading? 25th October 2021
@Machenbach Yeah that's a good call. It's been about fifteen years since I read the BR manga but it is horrible. The art is ugly, the already (intentionally) pulpy/cartoony nature of the book is played up, and it is deeply pornographically horrible in its depiction of female characters (who are meant to be FIFTEEN, which makes it even worse).The book isn't perfect - the writer admits he was aiming for a pulp fiction trashy style. There's a random homophobic chapter out of absolutely nowhere. The realistic depictions of the majority of the teen characters are tainted by some of the tropey cartoonish ones (the genius sociopath murderer, the perfect sports star, the horrible caricature of a gay male). BUT there is tenderness there - it is melodramatic but there are parts that I am embarrassed to admit made me cry even now I'm in my thirties. The sympathetic depiction of the "average" students really struck me as accurate too. And the book is frightening and disturbing and apart from the odd tedious monologue, gripping. I can turn a blind eye to the book's many flaws because of this.
But the manga? Nothing to redeem it whatsover. Horrible, sexist, ugly nonsense. Avoid avoid avoid.
I'm still reading the book (on volume 2 now) because I'm slow (especially in my second language) and it's loooong (two volumes totalling about 1000 pages) and I'm reading an English book at the same time.
I saw "Dune" at the cinema and was surprised by how good a time I had despite going in with very neutral expectations- it looked and sounded gorgeous. So I'm reading the book now. It's dense, but interesting.
MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "
by Andrea Camilleri, trans. Stephen SartarelliA very late addition to the Inspector Montalbano series... and rather a strange one...."
glad to see libraries being used, while i am not a library goer, i total support the idea of making available all matters of books for the reading public at a lower cost.
Miri wrote: "@Machenbach Yeah that's a good call. It's been about fifteen years since I read the BR manga but it is horrible. The art is ugly, the already (intentionally) pulpy/cartoony nature of the book is pl..."i remember the Manga films of the early 1990s including "Urotskidoji:Legend of the Overfiend" which seem to involve endless pornographic insertions by monsters. In my teens it seemed rather daring and totally out there but i look back and think "not so great". "Akira" was much better and clearly a higher artistic product. Though Urotskidoji does follow the japanese erotic woodblock art(shunga), with the idea of violation of women by otherwordly monsters or sea creatures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dre...
@ab76 I'm not against erotic depictions in manga in general, although it's not particularly my cup of tea of genre (the beauty of manga is there is a genre for everyone). But what upset and disturbed me about the BR manga, especially as I encountered it as a teenage girl who had already enjoyed the movie and book (neither of which is as sexist as the manga) was how it was so, so blatantly pornographic rather than erotic. The characters in the book and film are hormonal teens - they talk about sex and there's even an attempted rape (let's just say it does not go well for this young man, to put it mildly). But although occasionally the book could be a bit "uh yeah this is clearly written by a man" sometimes, the erotic stuff in the manga clearly was written for men to uh... enjoy... energetically. And for a pulpy silly book and film, there ARE social issues that are covered (not always sensitively, but they're there) and it grossed me out how pornographically the storylines of the three characters, who in the book are said to have performed sex work with old men for money, is portrayed in the manga.
On top of that, almost all the girls in the manga (who in the book vary from gorgeous to plain to ugly) are drawn like generic blow-up sex dolls. It's ugly stuff.
...sorry that became a bit of a rant. Apparently I'm not over it? I'm on page 600 or so of the book so maybe there's gross sex stuff later on I've forgotten but the manga I remember as definitely being worse.
I always loved in Mad Men when Peggy hung that erotic octopus shunga in her new office while smoking in doors in her sunglasses.
(of the three versions of BR I'd argue the director's cut of the film is the best when it comes to gender politics - Mitsuko, the baddest girl who was a sex worker before the game in the books / implied to be pimped out by her mother in thr film - is shown clearly to be a victim of circumstances and none of the depictions of her sexuality are done in an objectifying way for the men watching. Unlike the manga also the characters all look their age (except for two notable exceptions) and are allowed to be plain or have normal hairstyles.
...sorry I'm rambling more than this silly pulpy franchise is worth. Anyway the film is good fun - it captures the book's combination of satirical humour combined with teen melodrama and horror. And the director brought some of his own experiences to it (iirc his experiences on the homefront during the war and people's willingness to turn on each other out of fear). Much better than the manga as an adaptation.
Miri wrote: "@ab76 I'm not against erotic depictions in manga in general, although it's not particularly my cup of tea of genre (the beauty of manga is there is a genre for everyone). But what upset and disturb..."i am suprised at how westernised the manga characters are, with eye shapes, hair and eye colours (though naturally purple hair is rare anywhere on earth lol). The women are all impossibly curvaceous and while Yoko Ono showed the fertility goddess figure isnt rare among japanese women, there was almost a rejection of the japanese female figure
Actually no wait, I'm not done. Even beyond the sexism, the manga takes away things that really worked in the book. ALL the girls now fancy the main character, no matter how nonsensical it is. And melodramatic teen angst parts of the book that are silly but at least are tearjerky and interesting, are made into generic masculine hero fantasies. I remember one silly tragic plotline I loved as a teen - where the shy boy who fancied the shy girl and never told her or even spoke to her, finally finds her after searching the whole game, but she mistakenly thinks he's there to kill her and she shoots him and he dies. Before he dies he tells her to run but she's so stricken with guilt she curls up by the body and is shot in the back by Bad Girl Mitsuko. Great - pulpy, tragic teen angst! In the manga? He convinces her to run away with him and then when they are attacked by another male character and they have a karate show down! ..i mean, it's not great. Both storylines are tropey and shlocky but at least the book has some heart....ok NOW I'm done. I'm sorry for ranting!!!
at least teenage cardellina got that scene (albeit melodramatically acted) in the film: https://youtu.be/DWQz8VQPBRgah the nostalgia
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Thank you for these recommendations, AB!Fuzzywuzz wrote: A bit of workplace chat today revolved around things we do in our spare time. It amazes me how many people are surprised when I say I read..."
Henry VIII - what a great name! I love it here - great place to talk about books :)
scarletnoir wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "It amazes me how many people are surprised when I say I read. I'm surprised by how many adults I know that don't read."I wonder if this is a generational change? Both my parents..."
# message 212 - it could be a generational shift. Some colleagues have mentioned a lack of time, but others seem a little (for want of a better word) snooty when I mention reading. I suppose it's like any other pastime - each to their own.
Gpfr wrote: "It all depends on how formal you want to be. Prepositions at the end of sentences are perfectly acceptable in everyday speech/writing.I'll take off my English teacher's hat now🙄
😀
"from manifold experience, I know there is a genius that takes charge of every printed book and delivers it into the appropriate hands"Quite the claim in Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte: Mit den Farbholzschnitten von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Can it be this easy? Asking all the geniuses here.
@ Fuzzywuzz: I owe this humorous epithet (Henry VIII) to Madhamster, who compared his situation at work favourably to Cromwell's position with not so merry King Hal. And I have been grateful to him ever since, because thinking of this helped me cope much better (entertained) with my erratic, manipulative and often histrionic bully colleague!
@ AB: Ha, I have Astrid Lindgren's diaries here, Die Menschheit hat den Verstand verloren: Tagebücher 1939–1945, and will get round to reading them once I feel I can take it. (Can only take so much wars/ National socialism for now...)
@ Miri: I acquired Kim Jiyoung, geboren in 1982 recently, though I have not read it yet, as I have an inkling I might get very grumpy on reading it... Do you, or anyone else, know it? This is the English-language edition: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I love it here - great place to talk about books"Amongst other things! 😀
MK wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I have this very annoying habit of stating what reading fodder I am going to read, then going off and reading other things. Spooky stories have been replaced by the following:So..."
#message 220: by MK
Must have missed that John Connelly promotion you mentioned. I'll go and check it out, thanks. I wouldn't run a mile from someone who had no books in their house, but I might be hesitant discussing books with that person.
MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " by Andrea Camilleri, trans. Stephen SartarelliA very late addition to the Inspector Montalbano series... and rather a strange one...."
I love libraries. I visited my local branch yesterday to return a book. Although I came away empty handed I've reserved a couple (Miriam Margolyes - This Much is True and Alan Davies - Just Ignore Him).
There is something great about the anticipation of a pending book - delayed verses instant gratification. I was chatting with one of the librarians, she said people were slowly coming back. I guess most of the patrons are at the extremes of age. I do worry about the future of libraries though - use 'em or lose 'em.
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " by Andrea Camilleri, trans. Stephen SartarelliA very late addition to the Inspector Montalbano series... and rather a s..."
I worked in a library part time from 2004 to 2008 and even in that time the number of people using them for books decreased noticeably. The opposite was true in respect of computers.
AB76 wrote: "Trip to Waterstones to pick up:Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexeivich and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellisson
I have read two of Alexeivichs works of oral history, both post WW2 and they were excel..."
Reply to message 224: by AB76: My Mum was quite the reader - she subscribed to mail order books. There was a few thrillers and horrors on the shelf, as well as an encyclopaedia set and a Heinneman (can't remember the spelling) A-Z Family Medicine (the latter of which I loved dipping into). My brother has (and had) no interest in books/reading at all.
My daughter used to read an awful lot of books, but that all changed once she started secondary school. We were chatting about books recently and she said that she prefers reading a book in one sitting, which time does not allow. Shame, really.
Veufveuve wrote: @Shelflife - I've only read 1 and 2 of The Copenhagen Trilogy (which I insist on regarding as auto fiction). I have 3 ... but in Danish, which I bravely/foolishly said I would attempt.Am definitely going to reread the Moomins, which I really liked, too, and am interested in her other works. I would like to read the trilogy as a whole, and, yes, auto fiction is the word. One of the colleagues I can talk to about books is very knowledgeable on the genre. I might ask him about her over lunch.
Tove J I have loved since my childhood, first the Moomins, who are still adored, and later her adult fiction.
Bravely, I would say! I am quite used to the sound of Danish (know quite a few "minority Danes"), but I think it is not an easy language to learn...
Machenbach wrote:
I read [The Copenhagen trilogy] one after t'other and it was pretty unremitting stuff, but good. The initial publication in 3 separate volumes was unnecessary and, for me, yet another cause for complaint against the brand exploiting/destroying fuckwits at Penguin.As I plan to do. Yeah, the format is surprising. I wonder if they sold the rights like this, internationally? The German Aufbau Verlag is not known for ripoffs...
Small rant on Penguin: They commissioned a biography on a German-language person to someone who speaks no German and was not able to follow or keep up with current debates, many of which in this case were German-language, and even less consult original sources, of course. There was no budget for translations etc., so eventually they churned out this biography which is written up of English-language partly-dated secondary material... any historian would feel inclined to rant at this, I think. Raaaant! It's also bad for the genre of biography. Can't give any more details on which book/ person, sorry...
I like that you had London larks, btw! Just looking around can be great - and makes the lug home easier.
I am the slightly exasperated recipient of twice-weekly (it feels like) emails from the London hotel I stayed in during autumn 2019. Must not complain though: Silly me does not cancel them, as I am not averse to returning and special offers and all that, in general. One day.
Ha, this made me think about novels set in hotels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...
Grand Hotel and Hotel World came to mind, too! I am sure there are a lot more. Quite a wide thematic scope there...
Any favourites?
Berkley wrote #210:
I haven't read either of them yet, though I intend to, so right now my favourite Tove is the actress who played Viktoria in the 2nd series of The Bridge.Ha, I learnt something new there. (I am pretty useless about series.) Your having a favourite character speaks for the quality of the series.
CCCubbon wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wroteI'd hate to see the look on one colleagues' face if I told him I have a 'Teach Yourself Calculus' on my shelf. So I deliberately 'toned-down' the scope of my reading pursuits to mos..."
Reply to message 219: by CCCubbon: I have dipped into the book. I had a wonderful University lecturer (from Scotland) who taught Calculus when I was a First Year Undergraduate - she explained it so well and put into context how it is applied....she made it seem so easy.
I bought this book because occasionally I like to give myself a bit of a mental challenge. Back in my schooldays I always started with Maths homework first - it seemed to prime my brain for the rest of the subjects for some reason.
It's a lovely feeling when the penny drops!
Some late likes:Lovely review sequel on Don Quixote, many thanks.
The German Lesson is noted! (I have never read it.)
Re Banville and thesis:
I could only ever write an academic thesis on someone already dead! I suppose it is lucky I trained as a historian then, though I would not have gone so far as to kill potential subjects.
Machenbach wrote: "Ha! I enjoyed that, thanks. As an added bonus, it actually sounds like the plot of a Banville novel."I hadn't thought of that - it occurred to me that it echoed the Aspern Papers in an amusing way. The audacity of calling it 'John Banville's Narcissistic Fictions' is just priceless.
I'm back on the Banville train. Kepler is in the post.
Quick stop...@bl: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont!
@Miri, thanks for the warnings re the manga of BR. Due a re-watch of the film... Also: read Dune 2 weeks ago and loved it. Can't write much atm, but here is an exchange with @bl/shelflife on this https://www.goodreads.com/read_status... Edit: would have really loved to see the film, but not safe for me right now.
@Webber: hello too! Thanks for taking the whole covid convo on, I couldn't. Re PCR, when you mean it's not the best, do you mean because antibodies can drop, esp. in women (and that it'd be better to monitor T cells), or something else entirely?
@Robert: I don't mean that Let The Right One In is not a good book, but I still hated it. The paedophilia felt gratuitous (I was disgusted in the same way as I was with that Lemaitre novel - Travail soigné - we discussed with @Andy/safereturn in the past) and it just has one note (that's why I've compared it with Wuthering Heights, as for me all the characters were awful/had awful lives in pretty much the same ways, but I still think that the latter is an astonishing novel, so it's _almost_ a compliment)...
Machenbach wrote: "Wrth gwrs"Can't read Welsh, sorry...
Apologies for colourful swearing (that's Astérix, not Welsh, as far as I know) - enjoying the discussions here a lot (and delighted to see you, Hush!), but I need to be off for tonight, as tomorrow won't be manageable otherwise. (More colourful swearing on Deutsche Bahn, commuting, the wrong leaves and so on.)
Have fun!
Looking forward to reading up on the hotel novels mentioned so far. Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn features a memorable hotel scene, I just recalled, though it's not completely set in hotels.
@bl: haven't read it, but I'd guess The Shining too...? Also Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d'une femme (Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau).Edit: Nice Asterix swearing!
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote (243): Small rant on Penguin: They commissioned a biography on a German-language person to someone who speaks no German and was not able to follow or keep up with current debates, many of which in this case were German-language, and even less consult original sources, of course. There was no budget for translations etc., so eventually they churned out this biography which is written up of English-language partly-dated secondary material... any historian would feel inclined to rant at this, I think. Raaaant! It's also bad for the genre of biography.Building up suspense... To end it with the equivalent of a cold shower:
Can't give any more details on which book/ person, sorry...
Why? Respectively: why not?
CCCubbon wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wroteI'd hate to see the look on one colleagues' face if I told him I have a 'Teach Yourself Calculus' on my shelf.
Have you read it and did it work for you?
I can remember almost despairing that I would ever truly get to grips with it, so many, if this do thats, until I worked out the underlying reasons for it all...
I had the same experience - until I understood what was going on, I could never remember the 'rules'. So, when I taught the subject myself many years later, I made a point of teaching it from first principles, explaining what was going on... even though that wasn't strictly on the syllabus!
MK wrote: "During the back and forth John Connolly said that if he were visiting someone for the first time and saw no books in sight, he would turn around, take his wine with him, and exit."Haha! A bit extreme - I wouldn't do that - people who don't read (much) can also be interesting... but I suspect that many of us browse the shelves when invited into a new home - I certainly do! It can give some sort of idea who we're dealing with...
Hushpuppy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Wrth gwrs"Can't read Welsh, sorry..."
Maybe you have 'got it' from Mach's #258 comment?
If not - it means "of course" - though I suspect it may be an early example of 'Wenglish', where English words and phrases were simply 'Welshified' (if that is a word)... you would have come across similar borrowings in French, of course - as 'Frenglish'.
And the English are not averse to a good bit of borrowing themselves!
After all the highbrow hotel novels, may I lower the tone a bit by proposing Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel, featuring the irrepressible Miss Marple?
My bookshelves look like a Picasso painting with a layer of dust. Books are randomised. It really is a horrific sight ☺
scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wroteI'd hate to see the look on one colleagues' face if I told him I have a 'Teach Yourself Calculus' on my shelf.
Have you read it and did it work for you?
I can rem..."
Yes, true not only for calculus. I spent a few years teaching infants, four year olds to start and the lessons that I learned then helped me in teaching older children, undergraduates and adults. of different
abilities.
Apart from the first principles one of the most useful things that I learned was about speed of delivery - not going too fast for the relevant students, or too slow . I hear tv announcers making this basic error, heard lecturers making it and many others. Did think that all teachers and lecturers need to spend a little time in Reception class but that would be hard on the youngest learners!
Mod
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jaime Ford
A Room with a View by E.M Forster
Jamaica Inn by Daphne Dumaurier
Mod
There's also a Pym novel set in a hotel I seem to recall. "
In An Unsuitable Attachment, a party from St Basil's church visit Rome where they stay in a "pensione";
The pensione was of the reassuringly old-fashioned type which was used to catering mainly for parties of middle-aged English, American, German or Scandinavian women, though a few men in the shape of clergymen and husbands were also accommodated. but women always seemed to be in the majority and the proprietor and his wife, both of whom spoke excellent English and German, could be seen at every hour of the day advising parties of determined-looking women in sensible shoes how to get to St Peter's or the Piazza Venezia or the English church, or which were the best shops to buy presents and souvenirs to take home.
In another of her books, one of the characters sees an advertisement for a "Christian hotel" and wonders why that sounds so depressing even if one considers oneself a Christian. But I don't remember if a stay in a hotel follows, nor which book it comes in. I thought it might be A Glass of Blessings, but can't find the reference.
I do love Barbara Pym!
On another note, I borrowed The German Lesson from the library yesterday, in the French translation.
scarletnoir wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Wrth gwrs"Can't read Welsh, sorry..."
Maybe you have 'got it' from Mach's #258 comment?
If not - it means "of course" - though I suspect it may be an early ..."
But it hasn't got any vowels!!
(Spoken like a true Englishwoman)
Hushpuppy wrote: "@Webber: hello too! Thanks for taking the whole covid convo on, I couldn't. Re PCR, when you mean it's not the best, do you mean because antibodies can drop, esp. in women (and that it'd be better to monitor T cells), or something else entirely?Ciao Glad! Yup, I'm an antibody guy, so T cells aren't my weapon of choice, but either monitoring of T cell reactivity or Memory B cell maintenance is really the only truly functional assay. Unfortunately, they are not very easy to do, and particularly not in a clinical diagnostic lab setting. I think the bigger issue is that the ELISAs used to measure Covid-antibody reactivity, are far too quick and dirty. They don't take into account pre-existing immunity to banal coronaviruses, so that the background in the "healthy population" is probably allowing for a lot of false negatives. simply because the threshold for positivity is likely high. Clinical diagnostics are often so vague, that it's really no wonder that doctors can misdiagnose.
Mod
"it's No Fond Return Of Love and I'm pretty sure they do go to stay in the hotel
Yes, of course! They do go to the hotel.
Dulcie peeped into one of the rooms they were to have. It looked cheerless and unlived in, though there was a basin with the possibility of hot and cold running water. But now a new anxiety came over her - one inherited from her mother: was it certain that the beds would be properly aired? A damp bed ... she could hear again the horrified tone in which these words were pronounced. Damp beds - rheumatic fever - death: this was the natural sequence of events, with all the horror of a Victorian novel.
Lev Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (translated by Rosamund Bartlett)
Anna Karenina is a rich novel, I mean a really RICH novel -- and I'm not saying that because of its 800+ page length. It encompasses a variety of themes and touches many different subjects other than the Bovariesque story of passion and infidelity which is most famous for. And even plotwise, alongside the tragic relationship between Anna and Vronsky unravels a more interesting storyline that focuses on the book's second couple, Kitty and Levin (Tolstoy's alter ego), which serves as a counterweight to the central plot. So besides the role of marriage and extra-conjugal affairs in nineenth-century Russia, the weight of social convention, love, jealousy and remorse, the novel also develops subjects like the struggle between the recent European innovations and the values of century-old Eurasian traditions; the political economy of Russian rural landscape and agrarian activities; countryside living versus urban life; the impact of modern social reforms; filial love, uxorial feelings and marital behaviour; how to raise and educate children; war and peace (or non-violent creeds); the many facets of Russian identity and the divisive pan-Slavic trends; art, architecture and music; the place of religion and personal spiritual quest; piety, goodness and altruistic sentiment; hypocrisy, ambition, self-fulfilment and atonement. You name it: everything's there. Plenty of food for thought.
A lot has been said abot the quirkiness of Tolstoy's syntactic style, and it is obvious Bartlett's translation tried to respect it as much as possible. I find especially intriguing the way he starts a sentence using the regular first name + patronymic tag and finishes it having recourse to the same character's surname instead of calling for a simple pronoun (you sometimes wonder if we're still dealing with the same character, and you better be acquainted with all their names and diminutives). But generally speaking narrative revolves at very steady rhythm, and although there are many things happening the reader doesn't get lost. In fact, that's one of Tolstoy's main literary accomplishments: the different sub-plots are interwoven in such a flawless way they all feel natural and unaffected. The narrative flows effortlessly – each of the eigh parts is composed of many untitled short chapters, and every three or four chapters the focus shifts to a different character without provoking any discomfort and uneasiness in the mind of the reader. And besides the many repetitions and formulaic expressions that characterise his style, few are the passages when you sense Tolstoy's awkwardness too heavy. Here's an illustrative example:
Although Anna had stubbornly and bitterly contradicted Vronsky when he told her that her position was impossible and urged her to tell her husband everything, in the depths of her soul she regarded her position as false and dishonest, and longed with all her heart to change it. Returning with her husband from the races, she had told him everythingin the heat of the moment; despite the agony it had cost her, she was glad she had done so. After her husband left her, she told herself that she was glad everything would now be clarified, and that at least there would now be no lies and deception. She felt certain her position would now be clarified once and for all. It might be bad, this new position, but it would be clear, and there would be nothing vague or deceitful about it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband by uttering those words would now be rewarded by everything being clarified, she thought. That same evening she saw Vronsky, but she did not tell him what had happened between her and her husband, although for the position to be clarified he needed to have been told. (Part Three, Chapter 15, p. 291)
Has the reader been sufficiently clarified about Anna's position?
One more detail about characterisation. Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina between 1873 and 1877 and during such a long period of composition his characters changed as he himself was changing as a writer (which explains why Levin's spiritual anguishness dominates the last part of the book, mirroring Tolstoy's own identity crisis). That makes it much more interesting. Things are never black and white and everyone is portrayed with many nuances according to their role in the narrative and the effects of the passing time. That alone explains why this novel gains so much from the extensive size of the text.
All in all, an excellent read and a true classic everyone should be acquainted with.
Mod
Exactly!
CCCubbon wrote: "Did think that all teachers and lecturers need to spend a little time in Reception class but that would be hard on the youngest learners!"Indeed... and I had that experience. When I moved from teaching kids to teaching (prospective) teachers, a requirement came in for lecturers to have 'recent and relevant experience'. Now, the department was stuffed with dinosaurs who had not stood in front of a class of kids for 20 years or more... so who do you think got put up for this 'retraining exercise'? The HoD, wishing to protect his fellow fossils sent myself and another chap, both of us just out of teaching secondary, into a primary school - the logic being that we had no primary experience.
I didn't really mind, as it was great fun. My favourite lesson was with the reception class, where I challenged them to find a way to move me across the room without touching the ground. Fair play, they figured it out after a while - I had to sit in a large box, then they used large, solid plastic cylinders - part of a very big construction kit - as rollers, and easily succeeded, thereby re-creating a method used (I think) by the Egyptians to build the pyramids... I daresay the roller method goes back even further.
I also got to read them a story at the end of the day...
Gpfr wrote: In another of her books, one of the characters sees an advertisement for a "Christian hotel" and wonders why that sounds so depressing even if one considers oneself a Christian. But I don't remember if a stay in a hotel follows, nor which book it comes in. I thought it might be A Glass of Blessings, but can't find the reference.I do love Barbara Pym!"
I see that you and Mach have come to the conclusion that Pym's 'hotel book' wasn't this one.
I have recently started reading
(up to p.60 or so), and agree with you both that Pym is marvellous... should there be any reference to a hotel, I can let you know in a few days... it's great fun. No hotel so far, but two young-ish men have to find accommodation - a male housekeeper in the rectory, and a new priest with some parishioners. Maybe Gpfr was thinking of those events.
Machenbach wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "But it hasn't got any vowels!!.."Ha! 'W' is a vowel in Welsh of course - some English speakers might recognise it from the word 'Cwm' (as in the hymn tune 'Cwm Rhondda') which..."
Indeed... and Welsh pronunciation of consonants is pretty consistent, whereas the vowels can usually be either short or long.
Of course, 'y' is also a vowel in Welsh - we should challenge our English friends to pronounce 'Ynysybwl'!
The "mother" of all hotel novels is most likelyGrand Hotel by Vicki Baum. Set in Weimar Berlin it was a huge bestseller in its time. The film adaptation won an Oscar in 1933.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicki_Baum
It is a shame that Erich Kästners novella [Three Men in the Snow] has not been translated. into English.
It is a hotel novel par excellence. Where a shabbily dressed elderly man (who has won the stay) checks into a posh ski resort. Shortly before a well-dressed suave gentleman. The management had been informed about the millionaire travelling incognito...
A twist on an old story, but so much fun to read.
scarletnoir wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "But it hasn't got any vowels!!.."Ha! 'W' is a vowel in Welsh of course - some English speakers might recognise it from the word 'Cwm' (as in the hymn tune '..."
I meant to ask before, what sound does y make in Welsh?
scarletnoir wrote: "Of course, 'y' is also a vowel in Welsh - we should challenge our English friends to pronounce 'Ynysybwl'!"And of course there are differences in accent/pronunciation between North and South Wales. My southern Welsh partner hates the sound of the North, but I love it. Then again, the very few Welsh from Bangor who would talk to me hated the southerners more than the English. I generalise of course, and that was a good 40 years ago.
I remember a few phrases, and please excuse my spelling:
mae'r eira'n oer ar yryru (the snow is cold on Snowdon)
A Southerner told me this was a common tongue twister
cae dy gegg
No-one would ever tell me the real meaning of this, just not to say it in polite company. I've certainly not spelled it correctly, but I've heard it said quite a lot in the Welsh noir police series.
Cymru am byth! (I cheated and checked the spelling on that)
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A Glass of Blessings is one of my favourites.
Eight "hotel" books on my shelves, not all novels, only one of which (Grand Hotel) I believe has been mentioned.Hotel
Hotel Bemelmans
Hotel de Dream
Up in the Old Hotel
The Haunted Hotel & Other Stories
The Farmers Hotel
Five Plays: Farmers Hotel, Searching Sun, Champagne Pool, Veronique, Way It Was (Contains the stage version of the previous novel, the form in which it was originally conceived, as a reading of the novel makes pretty obvious.)
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Machenbach wrote: "Cabbie wrote: "And of course there are differences in accent/pronunciation between North and South Wales. My southern Welsh partner hates the sound of the North, but I love it. Then again, the very..."On the North-South divide wasnt Robin Macbride(from Bangor) one of very few north walians to be capped by the welsh national rugby team? I think the North plays football a lot more than rugby
Relevant to Wales is my current non-fiction essays collection Who Speaks For Wales by Raymond Williams, its superb so far
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Zofloya, or The Moor (other topics)The Big Sleep (other topics)
Travels with My Aunt (other topics)
Travels with My Aunt (other topics)
Singing The Sadness (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Reginald Hill (other topics)Nadine Gordimer (other topics)
Diedrich Diederichsen (other topics)
Jackie Kay (other topics)
Jackie Collins (other topics)
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"And a who instead of a with whom? Not sure on that one"
It all depends on how formal you want to be. Prepositions at the end of sentences are perfectly acceptable in everyday speech/writing.
I'll take off my English teacher's hat now 🙄