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What are we reading? 9th November 2021
message 51:
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Lljones
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Nov 11, 2021 07:28AM
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Lljones wrote: "Did I miss a memo? Is there a boycott in place? 😉"i was thinking that, wondered of goodreads had logged me out as it does sometimes, so i couldnt see any updates!
Stefan Wolle on the DDR is a great balance of observation and analysis in his book on the DDR from 1971-1989.I'm in the early 70s right now, as Erich Honecker becomes the party leader. Honecker has always fascinated me from seeing a photo of him in the Gestapo Musuem in Berlin, 1999, during the 1930s. A haunted, worried young communist in the nazi's grip to the dull, unpleasant dictator he became in the 1980s
Wolle observes he was almost comically inept with ad libbing or making comments off the cuff, vain as a peacock and totally unmemorable, without any personality . I would suggest he fits the communist dictator job qualifications perfectly!
@ScarletI just started reading the latest Constance Fairchild book by James Oswald called Nowhere to Run to find that it is set in Aberystwyth.
Now here I am practising my w Welsh sounds and have even been following where she is going on the map.
See what influence you have!
Reen wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "On a totally non-book and very smug note, I have finished all my Christmas present buying apart from one. Got the fruit cake (in lieu of a proper Christmas cake), the stollen."WHAT?? I have received a very early Christmas present, a glorious garment that I coveted as much as Rapunzel's mother did a head of lettuce "
😀😀😎
CCCubbon wrote: "@ScarletI just started reading the latest Constance Fairchild book by James Oswald called Nowhere to Run to find that it is set in Aberystwyth.
Now here I am practising my w Welsh sounds and have ..."
Well, well! I may have a look at this, if only to see whether the author has actually visited the town, and knows the first thing about it!
By a coincidence, I was just on another site, describing our usual Teddy-the-dog walking destination - Tanybwlch, which lies between the river Ystwyth and the beach.
(As you may well know, Aber = mouth of the river..., also found in Scotland and Brittany).
On a clear day, e.g. following rain - so it happens often - it's possible to see the whole way round Cardigan bay from South Pembrokeshire to the Lleyn Peninsula in Gwynedd. We could see Pembrokeshire this morning - it was murkier to the north.
Lljones wrote: "Did I miss a memo? Is there a boycott in place? 😉"It was oddly quiet for a while, wasn't it?
I've noticed that some weeks are much busier than others, for no very clear reason... maybe some regulars have "emptied their sack" (as they almost say in France) one week, and so don't feel they have much to contribute for a while afterwards.
Two from me…Pick-Up by Charles Willeford
This outstanding novel is about the relationship of Harry Jordan with Helen Meredith, whom he meets at a bar. She moves in with him, and their relationship begins on a high note. But as time goes by, it appears that Helen is an incurable alcoholic. Harry drinks, too, but he is more functional and marginally able to hold down simple jobs.
32 year old Harry is a server at Benny’s cafe in Chicago, but seems to have a different job every few weeks. He is a veteran of the war, and at one time a painter with some potential.
The novel opens..
It must have been around a quarter to eleven. A sailor came in and ordered a chile dog and coffee. I sliced a bun jerked a frank out of the boiling water, nested it, poured a half-dipper of chile over the frank and sprinkled it liberally with chopped onions. I scribbled a check and put it by his plate. I wouldn't have recommended the unpalatable mess to a starving animal. The sailor was the only customer, and after he ate his dog he left.
That was the exact moment she entered..
Helen is 33 years old, separate for the last ten years from her husband, and a recent graduate of college in geology, a three year course done with while living with her mother.
These are two wonderfully drawn characters.
Before I read this, I had seen it highly praised by sources I respect. But this really isn’t the novel I thought it was going to be, and I guess many readers may experience the same sentiment. I expect this was a major influence on the writing of Willy Vlautin; the first half was just like reading his work.
The second half is less classic noir, more police procedural, but Willeford keeps the best until the very last page, and it’s only then that the reader can look back and fully appreciate the whole thing.
This isn’t Willeford writing with the humour he often does, but at his darkest, and for me at least, his best work.
And, Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma translated by Frank Wynne.
Ten year old Birahima narrates, though he admits he may be twelve. The boy gets caught up in the regional turmoils and conflicts, a child soldier witness to the outrages perpetrated by the corrupt and evil leaders of various West African countries, especially Liberia and Sierra Leone, in the civil wars of the mid-1990s. It is clear, that though a novel, the book is hardly fiction, the events that are described solidly based in fact.
Despite Birahima being engaging, this is rarely an easy read. Though he is with other children and teenagers indoctrinated by the various criminal despots, he is never completely corrupted or damaged by what he is drawn into.
The boy seems mature beyond his years in certain regards, whereas as in others he comes over far younger.
It’s a very disturbing yet necessary piece of literature.
scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "@ScarletI just started reading the latest Constance Fairchild book by James Oswald called Nowhere to Run to find that it is set in Aberystwyth.
Now here I am practising my w Welsh..."
having visited pembrokeshire many times with family as a kid as an adult and knowing Aberteifi area quite well, i have never seen that view Scarlet, due to mist and fog, lucky you. I always used to look for the Preseli hills in the distance as a kid knowing we were close to our destination
SydneyH wrote: "Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis opens with a man’s death and follows the course of his life in reverse. The idea seemed like a gimmick at first, but I think Amis pulled it off quite well, with Dr Friendly’s terrible secret arriving in the perfect place in the novel. I don’t think this text contains Amis’s best prose, but there are no striking miscalculations or things to rub a picky reader the wrong way, as sometimes happens with Amis. Best of all, the book is under 140 pages.I’m likely to slow my Amis intake from this point, now that I’ve read most of his well-regarded novels (the rest of his body of work has far less in the way of critical endorsement).
I’m now turning to John Banville’s Kepler. "
I stopped reading Martin Amis after Night Train - which I didn't think was too bad, actually, but there was a long gap before his next one and when it finally came out I didn't feel motivated to give it a look. I think his politics turned me off at the time - his support for Bush, Jr's invasion of Iraq, etc. Don't know if I'll ever go back and try anything of his post-2000 output: so far, nothing I've heard about it has enticed me. I still think well of most of his earlier stuff, though.
Berkley wrote: "Don't know if I'll ever go back and try anything of his post-2000 output: so far, nothing I've heard about it has enticed me."Have you read Experience (published 2000)? I think it's possibly his best book.
SydneyH wrote: "Berkley wrote: "Don't know if I'll ever go back and try anything of his post-2000 output: so far, nothing I've heard about it has enticed me."Have you read Experience (published 2000)? I think it..."
No, was that a memoir? Not sure his personal life or observations would hold much interest for me at this point - which is kind of sad, as he was probably my favorite contemporary author for a few years in the late 80s to early 90s. One of, at the very least.
It's sort of a memoir, but it's as much a sort of character study of his extremely neurotic father and of his cousin, who was murdered by a serial killer. It was really quite surprisingly good. I don't know if Amis entirely came off as likeable, but I think it did quite a bit to humanise him for me. He didn't really discuss politics much, except that he was clearly a step to the left of his father.
SydneyH wrote: "(Martin Amis) was clearly a step to the left of his father.Which isn't too difficult to achieve!
scarletnoir wrote: "Which isn't too difficult to achieve!"No, certainly. Amis asked his father at one point "what's it like, being mildly anti-semitic?" Kingsley didn't seem to think it was too bad. Also, in the aftermath of Elizabeth Jane Howard leaving him, Kingsley wrote a book called Stanley and the Women, which Martin Amis acknowledged was pretty blatantly misogynistic.
Not a book I have read - or am likely to - but I thoroughly enjoyed Private Eye's review of State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny.Some snippets:
US secretary of state Ellen Adams is... "medium height, trim, elegant... her makeup was subtle, bringing out her intelligent blue eyes while not trying to hide her age.
(The) narcissistic, populist former president Eric Dunn... lives in Palm Beach, Florida. He plays a lot of golf.
The British Prime Minister... is "an upper class twit" prone to "spitting out random Latin phrases."
Russia's president Ivanov is "much smaller than she'd expected" (but was) "someone who calculated everything with a coldness that would have given Siberia a chill."
I wonder who Clinton had in mind?
The reviewer refers to "this over-long, shambolic, really quite bonkers book" and closes with this paragraph:
"What the fuck is this?" shouts Ivanov, when she confronts him with the photos. By the end of this stonkingly daft book, the reader might be wondering the same thing.
I did, once, read a book by Louise Penny, which was also daft - murder by bow and arrow - well, that should have reduced the number of suspects considerably - and unmemorable characters - even the cops. I only recall a couple of cut-out-and-paste gays, who were good cooks -maybe they ran a cafe? I can't be bothered to check.
At least the Clinton collaboration provides some protagonists with a bit more 'substance'!
scarletnoir wrote: "Not a book I have read - or am likely to - but I thoroughly enjoyed Private Eye's review of State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny.Some snippets:
US secretary of st..."
I tried to read a Penny book once but only lasted a few pages because the dialogue was so banal it was quite painful to read!
Mod
Ditto.
Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any new fiction, so have been reading, fitfully, some non-fiction:
I finished “A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France’s Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902” by BC Brower. Many thanks to @AB76 for this excellent recommendation. As the title announces, this is a book about unrelenting brutality. From general histories of 19th century France, one would have little idea of the barbaric conduct of the French army, when the generals decided that they had to pursue rebels over the mountains, raze their desert refuges and slaughter the villagers. I was interested to read about Ouargla and Ghardaia, two towns deep in the desert that I have visited, which turn out to have been centres of the slave trade. The local French commanders found they suffered from mal de voir when it came to a business that had officially been abolished in 1848 but continued to the end of the 19th century and beyond. A grim subject all related with literary skill.
I’ve read the two of the four studies in “The Banquet Years” by Roger Shattuck, the ones on Henri Rousseau and Erik Satie. Rousseau’s paintings, which express a child-like wonder, are of a piece with his life: despite repeated tragedy - twice widowed, seven children dying in infancy - he seems to have been a complete ingénu. I had assumed, wrongly, from the jungle settings that he had travelled in the tropics. After fifteen years as a collector of tolls and duties in Paris (a municipal Gabelou. rather than a state Douanier), at age 40 he gave himself entirely to painting and lived in a poor quarter on a small pension, often busking for his next meal. He exhibited his work at the annual Salon des Indépendants entirely untroubled by the derision of the viewing public. RS writes very attractively, with easy erudition. He analyses every component of the surviving paintings. I particularly liked his observations on the light that floods the pictures with no obvious source, leaving figures and objects shadowless and weightless. I used to look on these pictures as stiffly executed curios. Now that I know the story of this naïf artist of the people, I find them stirringly strange.
The life of Erik Satie was equally interesting and equally impoverished. RS does a great job of describing his character and his works and how they were received (not well). The technical analysis was mostly over my head. These passages are for people who know what fourths and fifths are. On to Jarry and Apollinaire. The Jarry is already both hilarious and sad.
I’m also enjoying “The Harz Journey and Selected Prose” by Heinrich Heine (trans. Ritchie Robertson). I didn’t know he was a humorist. In “The Town of Lucca”, for example, it is a long time before we arrive in town, because along the way he stops to discuss the respective merits of Hegel and Schelling with a philosophical lizard, and to seek directions from a twittering sparrow. He then invents an English milady to mock the Catholic clergy, and - nice to come upon this - he describes his youthful devotion to Don Quixote. He becomes serious only to denounce established religions, not excluding the C of E, “that miserable rotten skeleton of faith”. There’s nothing resembling a guide to Lucca. I’ve now gone back to the lead essay, which, though more of a travel memoir, seems to be written in the same spirit. Before he starts on his journey he contemplates the feet of the women of Göttingen and the excessive largeness thereof.
……
Anyone with a child or grandchild aged 16-18 might want to pass on a bit of advice I had this week from an oral surgeon regarding wisdom teeth. Here I am in my 70s and one of my two unextracted wisdom teeth came through the gum and got infected. So it had to come out. My regular dentist did not want to do it, because the nerve to your lip runs quite close. If the person doing the extraction severs the nerve, you dribble your drinks for the rest of your life. He refers me to an oral surgeon. The surgeon, a lovely man, says, “At 16, 17, 18, they pop right out, and that’s the best time to do it. You at your age, it might be difficult. They get deep into the bone." I sit semi-upright while he reaches for one after another of his armoury of tools and leans his full body-weight on my lower jaw. “Petrified,” he says, which I get after a moment. With the local anaesthetic, I don’t feel a thing, but the loud splintering and cracking noises seem to go on for an alarmingly long time. ”Okay,” he says finally, “now for the other root.”
The nurse said the pain and swelling would get worse till about now and then slowly get better. It’s four days later and I look like one side of a Henry VIII portrait by Holbein, a single massive jowl and a discontented expression from the jaw ache. The surgeon gave me a prescription for opioid painkillers, in case I had really serious pain. I picked them up straightaway at the pharmacy, where interestingly I had to produce photo ID for them to scan, and sign two screens to confirm receipt. Thankfully on a scale of 0 to 10 the pain hasn’t been much more than a 3. A combination of OTC medication has taken care of it well enough. I hope to stay away completely from that opioid stuff. All of which - infection, operation, nerve risk, opioids - would have been avoided if I had had it done in my teens.
I finished “A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France’s Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902” by BC Brower. Many thanks to @AB76 for this excellent recommendation. As the title announces, this is a book about unrelenting brutality. From general histories of 19th century France, one would have little idea of the barbaric conduct of the French army, when the generals decided that they had to pursue rebels over the mountains, raze their desert refuges and slaughter the villagers. I was interested to read about Ouargla and Ghardaia, two towns deep in the desert that I have visited, which turn out to have been centres of the slave trade. The local French commanders found they suffered from mal de voir when it came to a business that had officially been abolished in 1848 but continued to the end of the 19th century and beyond. A grim subject all related with literary skill.
I’ve read the two of the four studies in “The Banquet Years” by Roger Shattuck, the ones on Henri Rousseau and Erik Satie. Rousseau’s paintings, which express a child-like wonder, are of a piece with his life: despite repeated tragedy - twice widowed, seven children dying in infancy - he seems to have been a complete ingénu. I had assumed, wrongly, from the jungle settings that he had travelled in the tropics. After fifteen years as a collector of tolls and duties in Paris (a municipal Gabelou. rather than a state Douanier), at age 40 he gave himself entirely to painting and lived in a poor quarter on a small pension, often busking for his next meal. He exhibited his work at the annual Salon des Indépendants entirely untroubled by the derision of the viewing public. RS writes very attractively, with easy erudition. He analyses every component of the surviving paintings. I particularly liked his observations on the light that floods the pictures with no obvious source, leaving figures and objects shadowless and weightless. I used to look on these pictures as stiffly executed curios. Now that I know the story of this naïf artist of the people, I find them stirringly strange.
The life of Erik Satie was equally interesting and equally impoverished. RS does a great job of describing his character and his works and how they were received (not well). The technical analysis was mostly over my head. These passages are for people who know what fourths and fifths are. On to Jarry and Apollinaire. The Jarry is already both hilarious and sad.
I’m also enjoying “The Harz Journey and Selected Prose” by Heinrich Heine (trans. Ritchie Robertson). I didn’t know he was a humorist. In “The Town of Lucca”, for example, it is a long time before we arrive in town, because along the way he stops to discuss the respective merits of Hegel and Schelling with a philosophical lizard, and to seek directions from a twittering sparrow. He then invents an English milady to mock the Catholic clergy, and - nice to come upon this - he describes his youthful devotion to Don Quixote. He becomes serious only to denounce established religions, not excluding the C of E, “that miserable rotten skeleton of faith”. There’s nothing resembling a guide to Lucca. I’ve now gone back to the lead essay, which, though more of a travel memoir, seems to be written in the same spirit. Before he starts on his journey he contemplates the feet of the women of Göttingen and the excessive largeness thereof.
……
Anyone with a child or grandchild aged 16-18 might want to pass on a bit of advice I had this week from an oral surgeon regarding wisdom teeth. Here I am in my 70s and one of my two unextracted wisdom teeth came through the gum and got infected. So it had to come out. My regular dentist did not want to do it, because the nerve to your lip runs quite close. If the person doing the extraction severs the nerve, you dribble your drinks for the rest of your life. He refers me to an oral surgeon. The surgeon, a lovely man, says, “At 16, 17, 18, they pop right out, and that’s the best time to do it. You at your age, it might be difficult. They get deep into the bone." I sit semi-upright while he reaches for one after another of his armoury of tools and leans his full body-weight on my lower jaw. “Petrified,” he says, which I get after a moment. With the local anaesthetic, I don’t feel a thing, but the loud splintering and cracking noises seem to go on for an alarmingly long time. ”Okay,” he says finally, “now for the other root.”
The nurse said the pain and swelling would get worse till about now and then slowly get better. It’s four days later and I look like one side of a Henry VIII portrait by Holbein, a single massive jowl and a discontented expression from the jaw ache. The surgeon gave me a prescription for opioid painkillers, in case I had really serious pain. I picked them up straightaway at the pharmacy, where interestingly I had to produce photo ID for them to scan, and sign two screens to confirm receipt. Thankfully on a scale of 0 to 10 the pain hasn’t been much more than a 3. A combination of OTC medication has taken care of it well enough. I hope to stay away completely from that opioid stuff. All of which - infection, operation, nerve risk, opioids - would have been avoided if I had had it done in my teens.
@SydneyH/Berkley - FWIW, I too had sworn off Martin Amis for many years but then for some reason picked up “Lionel Asbo: The State of England” (2012) – I think I read the first few pages in a library. I really enjoyed it and gave it a two-thumbs-up review back on the old TLS ("… raucous, hilarious… language buzzing… what a rip.”). I don’t remember what the professional critics thought.
Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any new fiction, so ha..."glad you enjoyed the BC Brower book Russ
i have a wisdom tooth under the gum at 45 and may have same issues if i live as long as you Russ. Same situation put to me by the dentist, that its too close to the bone and nerve damage could result, it has given me no issues(yet) though
i also agree on opoids, had an unpleasent unexplained week of vomiting and pain in my late 30s and was prescribed tramadol for the pain. i only took it for 3 days but hallucinations and nightmares were the theme(no pain though). although i wouldnt call it traumatic, its was very WIERD
Mod
Thanks for this review, Russell. Annoyingly, I saw this title on my brother's shelves but failed to open it to investigate, so left it behind. I've just ordered it!
I'm working on a needlepoint piece, a detail from Rousseau's "The Dream", that will probably take the rest of my life to complete. Maybe Shattuck's study will inspire me to pick up the pace.
Lljones wrote: "Russell wrote: "I’ve read the two of the four studies in “The Banquet Years” by Roger Shattuck, the ones on Henri Rousseau and Erik Satie..."Thanks for this review, Russell. Annoyingly, I saw th..."
just googled that painting, its lovely
Lljones wrote: "I'm working on a needlepoint piece, a detail from Rousseau's "The Dream", that will probably take the rest of my life to complete. Maybe Shattuck's study will inspire me to pick up the pace."Have you read Nightwood? One scene is directly inspired by that painting.
Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any new fiction, so ha..."Thank you for those interesting reviews... I had always known that Rousseau was a 'traveller of the mind' rather than an actual intrepid jungle visitor... his paintings are wonderfully strange and silent.
Satie is another 'strange' artist who seemed to go down his own distinctive path - I am playing Gymnopédie no. 1 and Gnosienne no. 1 as I write, as a reminder. Fascinating and rather other-wordly.
As for teeth - my own wisdom teeth caused a lot of trouble and partly as a result, extractions now make me a very slow eater - I'm always the last to clear my plate! I hope your jaw recovers soon, and fully.
Tramadol, though, is wonderful stuff - as you soon realise, if you wake from an operation to pin a broken femur back together. Extreme pain is no fun, and the drug does dull it most effectively.
We part company when it comes to Amis - I have read two (I think) and that was more than enough. I failed to see anything at all funny in 'London Fields', for example - tasteless and rather disgusting. I'd almost prefer to break my other femur than have to read another Amis. Certainly, the removal of a wisdom tooth would be less painful. (What is it about Amis and teeth? ;-) )
Mod
Eons ago. Thanks for giving me inspiration to revisit it.
I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear that the detail I'm stitching centers around the lions.
Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any new fiction, so ha..."I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth out at 18 in one fell swoop, because my orthodontist said I had a tiny mouth, and that the wisdom teeth would have raped and pillaged all of that expensice orthodontistry my parents had just floated. To which my mother responded "Physically maybe, but it's pretty damn big in every other sense."
Anyway, the morning after the surgery, I was still wonky from the anesthetic, but I thought it was all fine and dandy. I climbed the stairs from my basement bedroom, wobbled over to the bathroom and proceeded to pass out onto the clothes hamper (missing the glass shower door by about 6 inches), and emptied about 4 liters of warm urine down my pajama pants.
So, my advice for parents of 16/17/18 year olds is take the day after surgery as vacation, and bring a mop.
Mod
Did you save them? I have mine (somewhere).
Lljones wrote: "Paul wrote: "I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth out at 18 in one fell swoop..."Did you save them? I have mine (somewhere)."
No, I don;t remember it being an option, but after the surgery they could have asked me to recite the preamble to the Constitution backwards and I wouldn't remember.
scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any ne..."For Scarlet - more Aberystwyth from Nowhere to Run
‘Aberystwyth’s a funny little town. Huddled between two steep-sided hills like the nest of some giant carrion bird, it’s literally the end of the line, furthest you can go before you fall into the sea. I heard one description of it as being the perfect refuge for the unambitious man, but I think that’s probably being unfair. Somehow, stuck away in the arse end of nowhere, keep people coming, and the National Library of Wales sat at the top of the hill like some great white monument to past ideals. Bronglais Hospital, where Greasy Rat and Slaphead had their injuries treated, is the other main source of employment, along with the Welsh Government building across the road from the police station where I’m headed.’
I have been for a drive around the town shops and Penparcau housing estate ( that might be made up).
Do you know why the town is named after the river Ystwyth rather than the bigger river Rheidol that actually runs through the place?
James Oswald lived there for ten happy years, in the difficult-to-pronounce village of Cwmystwyth, a thousand feet up in the Cambrian Mountains. I cannot pronounce that one!
Paul wrote: "Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhatk under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any ne..."Ha, had my four taken out a couple of weeks after my 21st birthday. I remember the following day in hospital I passed out while sitting in bed and was very worried they wouldn't let me out. I took the teeth home in a little jar and kept them for a while - the best teeth I owned! I also remember not being able to eat much more than soup for a few days and my then boyfriend brought me a bunch of grapes!
scarletnoir wrote: "Not a book I have read - or am likely to - but I thoroughly enjoyed Private Eye's review of State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny.Some snippets:
.US secretary of state Ellen Adams is... "medium height, trim, elegant... her makeup was subtle, bringing out her intelligent blue eyes while not trying to hide her age."
Oh, the narcissism! She denigrates everyone else but glowing describes herself. Which she is obviously doing.
Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any new fiction, so ha..."I sympathise Russell. The nerve risk is real. I had two removed when I was in my late 20s but all these years later still have only the merest sensation in part of my lower lip where the nerve was cut. It causes no great encumbrance but it's an odd feeling and one I'd rather have avoided. To think I have only felt 90% of the good kisses along the way, Ha
Found a lovely Tucholsky poem in the PSB LP "Bright Magic", called "Augen in der Grossstadt" and i love it, what a brilliant poem, as an ex-commuter, waiting at stations in the big city , i thought "he gets it"I think you are a fan of the Big T, Georg, yes?
Russell wrote: "I don’t remember what the professional critics thought."I don't think the professional critics were enthusiastic, but the most scathing criticism I've seen has been for Yellow Dog and The Pregnant Widow. His two most recent books, Zone of Interest and Inside Story have had a much more positive reception.
Reen wrote: "Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any ne..."After mine were extracted a part of my tongue was numb for a few months.
Russell wrote: "Owing to something that I relate below, and still being somewhat under the spell of Cervantes (thanks, Anne, and yes, definitely recommended), I’ve not been able to settle to any new fiction, so ha..."I have enjoyed 'The Facts of Life' by Graham Joyce. Thanks Russell for pointing me towards this book. It is a light but cogent read, and he does give a real sense of spirit to what Coventry must have been like in the aftermath of the bombing in WWII. I had a very strong sense of the family, and in their various oddities. I was both entertained and felt sympathy with them in their eccentric oddness. but still trenchant solidarity with each other. I felt a kinship with Cassie, as I know what it is to be thought of as odd. And I did like the melding of the Lady Godiva story into the mix as well.
From time to time some bits of it reminded me of 'Cold Comfort Farm' somehow. There was an underlying proddingness, being 'sent up', by the author, of social conventions of those particular times, especially the 'posh' Oxford University based commune that one of the seven sisters, via the WEA, joined in with for a while, in order to 'get' an 'education'!...
I looked Joyce up on Wiki, and it seems that he had won various, mostly sci-fi, awards and had been styled as a purveyor of magical realism. Mach might be interested here, in that he denied the influence of 'MR', and said that he was much more a follower of the likes of Machen, and that he called his writing style as a sort of English 'Old Peculier' type!... I have had a sip of that (the beer version) from a mate, and was not a fan, but I could see what he meant by it. Anyway an enjoyable read, and it has led me back to thinking that I will go back to Coventry and take in the museum, for the back story of Lady Godiva, and the 'peeping tom', which we missed the first time round as we were too late for the museums early closing time...
I see Margaret/Mrs Oliphant was mentioned. For what it's worth (which is not much) I've read "Hester" and think it was well worth it. A genuinely interesting, well written novel - with the obvious caveat that you have to like C19th fiction.
Tam wrote the name Graham Joyce and it sparked in me a memory. Does/has anyone read Joyce Cary? I read the "First Trilogy" (Herself Surprised/To Be a Pilgrim/The Horse's Mouth) well over three decades ago and whilst I can no longer recall the books in any meaningful detail, I do remember being deeply moved. Profoundly atheist long before I even knew there was such a word, I think "To Be a Pilgrim" brought me closer to understanding religious faith than any other book I've read.
Veufveuve wrote: "Tam wrote the name Graham Joyce and it sparked in me a memory. Does/has anyone read Joyce Cary? I read the "First Trilogy" (Herself Surprised/To Be a Pilgrim/The Horse's Mouth) well over three deca..."hi veuf, i have read two of Carys colonial novels set in Nigeria, they were "Mister Johnson" and "An American Visitor" plus his Ulster set novel "A World of Children" partly based on his childhood.
I would recommend all three, the colonial novels offer a view of Nigeria which fascinated me, Cary served as a colonial officer in Africa and also wrote an account of his service in the military in WW1 in Africa.
Mod
(raises hand)
I don't remember reading the first you mention, but loved the other two.
Occasion for Loving by Nadine Gordimer (1963) is a great read so far.Partly a subtle commentary on the grey spaces between the vast wildernesses of apartheid policy, it is also a quite liberal study of morality, based around a young married englishwoman having an affair with a black painter and running concurrently the complicated life of a middle aged mother and her family.
Gordimer has a real way with words and a keen eye for the world of Johannesburg in that second decade of apartheid. The busy streets, the townships, the elegant white suburbs and the crowded parties where white meets black. Oddly so far, the police state seems totally absent....
Mod
I read The Horses's Mouth many years ago.
CCCubbon wrote: "‘Aberystwyth’s a funny little town. Huddled between two steep-sided hills like the nest of some giant carrion bird, it’s literally the end of the line, furthest you can go before you fall into the sea."Yes, I can see that Oswald knows the town - the only inaccuracy/poetic license he takes is to imply that the police station and government buildings are facing each other - he doesn't say so explicitly, for it isn't true - they are indeed on opposite sides of Boulevard St. Brieuc, but about a kilometre apart. The town is indeed 'little' by most standards, but bear in mind that it is the largest for 70 miles in any direction! So, to us, it's a sort of metropolis - a Cwm Ystwyth dweller is living in 'the bush' as local parlance has it.
As for your own comment, there is indeed a housing estate in Penparcau (on the 'wrong side' of the river Rheidol) - what on earth were you doing there? Looking for a dealer?
I read a long time ago that the river Rheidol used to debouch near the northernmost hill - Constitution Hill - and was significantly further from the castle than the Ystwyth; however, the Rheidol changed its course at some point, and is now indeed nearer the town.
(Footnote: 'Ystwyth' means 'flexible', which I suppose reflects the river's winding course to the sea.)
How interesting scarlet, especially about the rivers.That housing estate is mentioned as a place for drugs and so on in the book but I thought it might have been invented.
I gather that ‘aber’ means the river mouth and I have learned that f is pronounced as a v!
It’s a pretty good crime novel, too, well, I’m hooked.
Russell wrote(#79): and - nice to come upon this - he [Heine] describes his youthful devotion to Don QuixoteHe conjures up this early reading experience most beautifully in his introduction to Ludwig Tiecks translation of Don Quichotte (1837).
The devotion was youthful, the attachment stayed through the years, and sometimes strayed into identification it seems.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37478
(I hope you are feeling better!)
Georg wrote: "Russell wrote(#79): and - nice to come upon this - he [Heine] describes his youthful devotion to Don QuixoteHe conjures up this early reading experience most beautifully in his introduction to Lu..."
were you the Tucholsky fan Georg?
So many wisdom teeth stories! It wouldn’t surprise me to hear there’s an enterprising dentist-blogger out there somewhere who even collects them.
@Reen – Very sorry to hear it didn’t go quite right for you. Trouble kissing was in my mind, as I do look forward to many years yet.
@LL – Rousseau – What a wonderful project. The study includes a letter that Rousseau wrote about The Dream to an enquiring but not very bright art critic. It reads as a perfect summation of his outlook.
@Scarlet – Amis – You made me laugh, much appreciated.
@Tam – Graham Joyce - So glad you enjoyed it. The bits that keep coming back to me are “played like a banjo” and “a message from the Agent”. I tried one other of his, about well-women in rural Warwickshire, which had its moments but was not up to the level of The Facts of Life. I’m not very interested in his full-on MR/scifi stuff.
@Georg – Heine – Many thanks for that link, which I doubt I would ever have found on my own. I can believe the lasting attachment to Don Quixote. I closed the book thinking I’m going to have to re-read this before too long.
Still feeling rather useless – crosswords and jigsaws for the next few days, I think.
@Reen – Very sorry to hear it didn’t go quite right for you. Trouble kissing was in my mind, as I do look forward to many years yet.
@LL – Rousseau – What a wonderful project. The study includes a letter that Rousseau wrote about The Dream to an enquiring but not very bright art critic. It reads as a perfect summation of his outlook.
@Scarlet – Amis – You made me laugh, much appreciated.
@Tam – Graham Joyce - So glad you enjoyed it. The bits that keep coming back to me are “played like a banjo” and “a message from the Agent”. I tried one other of his, about well-women in rural Warwickshire, which had its moments but was not up to the level of The Facts of Life. I’m not very interested in his full-on MR/scifi stuff.
@Georg – Heine – Many thanks for that link, which I doubt I would ever have found on my own. I can believe the lasting attachment to Don Quixote. I closed the book thinking I’m going to have to re-read this before too long.
Still feeling rather useless – crosswords and jigsaws for the next few days, I think.
AB76 wrote: were you the Tucholsky fan Georg?Is that AD, AB?
Not 2 weeks ago (Oct 31) you asked me who my favourite German author was -> you'll find the answer in my answer :-D
(not that I hadn't waxed more or less lyrically about him numerous times before here...)
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Books mentioned in this topic
The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate: Vol. 1, 1764–1772 (other topics)Herzog (other topics)
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Herzog (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Charles Willeford (other topics)Willy Vlautin (other topics)
Ahmadou Kourouma (other topics)
Roy Jacobsen (other topics)
