Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 9th November 2021
Bill wrote: "The LRB review of Ravelstein by Christopher Hitchens ("The Egg-Head’s Egger-On" linked to in the "Know Your Enemies" podcast) quotes an early review of The Closing of the American Mind which suggests, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that Bellow himself is the author: "Who wrote the review Hitchens was quoting, I wonder - not Hitchens himself, I take it?
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Antonia Lloyd-JonesThe first thing to say about this book is that it is very funny - I laughed out loud, and often. I do wonder whether this is the first book by a Nobel prize-winning author to open with a joke?
I am already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of having to be removed by an ambulance in the night.
(OK, pedants - that is preceded by a quotation from William Blake - as are all the chapters - but it's the author's first contribution.)
This book had been sitting on my virtual TBR pile for a while, so that I don't recall any reviews which were probably written on TLS or eTLS... so I was faced with two instincts pulling in opposite directions... 'Nobel Prize winner'? - normally enough to make me run in the opposite direction - but 'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead' - a brilliant title, and the most appealing since 'The Dwarves of Death' as a promise of a bit of fun. Turns out that's a quote from Blake as well, but it's superbly well chosen. Anyway, I dived in - and I'm glad I did.
It's not easy to review the novel without spoilers, so I'll more or less avoid the plot. Suffice to say that it takes place in a real location - the Stołowe Mountains ('Table Mountains' in English), a plateau on the Polish-Czech border. All the towns mentioned are real, though it's possible that the village and hamlet are invented - I don't know - but I always find such real locations far more satisfying than vague or imaginary ones.
As for the narrator: Janina Duszejko is an eccentric elderly lady who lives in a tiny hamlet on the plateau, where in winter she is one of only three year-round residents - the other houses are for summer occupation only, and Duszejko earns some money as a caretaker. In addition, she teaches English part-time in a village school not far away, and assists a former pupil in his attempt to translate Blake into Polish. She is a vegetarian and animal lover, and also an amateur astrologer who likes to discover people's birth dates in order to predict their futures. She is much given to digressive speculation and theorising. As time moves on, there are 'unexplained' deaths in the area, though I'd hardly classify the book as a murder mystery - that's probably the least important aspect of the novel.
How much you like the book may in part depend on whether you like Duszejko's character and way of thinking - since a great deal mirrored my own (I love to theorise and digress) it's maybe no surprise that I enjoyed the book hugely - being a veggie probably also helped! It is also very well written.
Was there anything to dislike? I know that the Astrology was needed to develop the narrator's character - in one chapter only, near the start of the book, that was given too much attention for too long for my taste; later, those sections were short and well integrated. Other than that - nothing. To close this digressive review, here's another humorous theory to tempt you:
It’s hard work talking to some people, most often males. I have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and a capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced capacity to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops and interest in various Tools and machinery, and he’s drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character’s psychological understanding.
I don't (yet) appear to be suffering from 'testosterone autism'!
PS - The translation appears to be brilliantly done - the text flows effortlessly. I have no Polish, so can't say more than that - but Antonia Lloyd-Jones won a prize in 2018 for translations from Polish, so I guess people who know both languages also rate her work highly.
Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I have just read The Fleur de Sel Murders (Commissaire Dupin #3) by Jean-Luc Bannalecset in Brittany featuring a maverick (aren't they all?) detective...."
I've just looked this writer up, not having heard of him before and see that he is in fact German..."
Indeed. Jörg Bong was Director-General of large German publisher S.Fischer Verlag until 2019, so I would guess that he didn't have any difficulty in getting his books published!
I can't comment on the books as I haven't read them. A German TV series was produced based on the books - the series was also shown on French TV, and I saw some episodes which proved mediocre. Had Bong still been in post at Verlag, I would have advised him to 'not give up the day job'. Of course, the books may be better...
As for the setting of one of the books - Guérande is well worth a visit to see the salt pans, and to see the way in which the paludiers collect the salt using traditional methods. (We have a packet of sel de Guérande on our kitchen worktop here... though TBH I'm a bit of a heathen - all salt tastes the same to me... but madame insisted, so....)
This video shows the paludier at work (interview in French):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBq1q...
scarletnoir wrote: "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Antonia Lloyd-JonesThe first thing to say about this book is that it is very funny - I laughed out loud, and o..."
"He develops and interest in various Tools and machinery, and he’s drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character’s psychological understanding."
describes an awful lot of the older men in my family alas!...
do you know the full version of the Blake quote, or where it comes from?
scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I have just read The Fleur de Sel Murders (Commissaire Dupin #3) by Jean-Luc Bannalecset in Brittany featuring a maverick (aren't they all?) detective....""
That makes us both heathens then! I have some Himalayan pink rock salt in my cupboard. It tastes like........salt.
Ciao a tutti,I've retreated into my comfort zone, as it is becoming abundantly clear that my youngest son is one of those rare human beings that does not need more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night to be fully functional. Me, not so much.
So I revisited my best Italian friend, Italo Calvino. First trying out a new-to-me book:Palomar , which was typical Italo. Gentle, laughing and prodding, turning gazes variously outwards and inwards. Palomar seems to be Calvino's reflection on the dichotomy of observation, how the field of view can change depending upon what side of the microscope you find yourself. He applies his switching viewpoints, his inanimate empathy to natural processes (waves/plants) to the folks at the formaggerie and onto the universe.
While it's typical Calvinian search for underlying truths, for Grand Unifying Principles, it's a midway point in Calvino's inquisitiveness. It seems to lie between the interpersonal disparity of Marcovaldo and the expansive playfulness of The Cosmicomics. Because of this, I found myself revisiting Marcovaldo and a few of the The Cosmicomics.
Maybe it's because of reading it in Italian this time, but I didn't find Marcovaldo to be quite as yuck-yuck, mean spirited as I did on the first reading. It seemed perfectly in line with his childlike wonder and his yearning for objectivity.
Calvino is evergreen, and I expect he always will be, he can bridge kids and adults, opening minds and tired souls.
My current read, is certainly not anywhere near Calvinian, Tea Obreht's Inland
My other read of these past few weeks has been my yearly visit into the direness of the Zolaverse. You will die! But there is wine for now!
Emile is the Trent Reznor of the post-Napoleonic era. I can see Emile writing Hurt or Shit Mirror, cutting himself while his girlfriends look on and ask "But Emmy, why don't we get some brunch?"
The Conquest of Plassans is a somewhat minor work in the Rougonn-Macquart cycle, but it is a keystone book that lays out how the characters that trickle down through later novels derive from one another. It's not the original sin of the R-M novels (that is apparently The Fortunes of The Rougons, which I haven't gotten to yet. However, it is the recoil that followed from the first book that shook through the cycle, creating the internecine warfare, the insatiable hunger and the clawing competition that characterized Les Rougon-Macquarts.
Justly considered a minor work when compared with the likes of Germinal or The Masterpiece , it is nonetheless full-out doom and naturalistic gloom.
The book settles into the countryside manor of the Mouret family just as their lodger, Abbe Faujas, and the rippling destruction wreaked by the overt power struggle hiding under the guise of religious fervor. Zola very clearly was no fan of the clergy, and he set a very clear path to show how the provocation of idolatry will eventually consume the idol. In this case, Faujas awakens the unhappy mother, Marthe, and pushes her down the roller coaster of zealotry when her momentum will eventually come back to pull him down.
Marthe in particular is one of those characters at which Zola excels, those folk for whom we want to have empathy, but whose transformation moves them so far from the center that you almsot find yourself cheering their downfall . Marthe's clear love for the Abbe, her abandonment of her children, her castigation and exile of her husband, her depletion of a life's worth of work and savings and dreams makes her a perfectly odious cretin. Despite her being the nucleus of this particular blackhole, few of the other characters are more than only modestly more sympathetic.
Again, I wouldn't call it the best of Zola's cycle, but it is that centerpiece that makes the table.
Tam wrote: "do you know the full version of the Blake quote, or where it comes from?"According to Wikipedia:
The book draws its title from William Blake's poem "Proverbs of Hell".[10]
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
I can't tell you more than that... but I suppose you could say the themes reflect in some way Blake's ideas, judging by the entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mar...
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I have just read The Fleur de Sel Murders (Commissaire Dupin #3) by Jean-Luc Bannalecset in Brittany featuring a maverick (aren't they all?) de..."
Ah, my dears, you obviously have no idea of savoir vivre.
Ok, the peak of the hype for fine salts (containing 99.9% of NaCl) at prices up to 10 quid/100g is all but over.
BUT: there is still hope!
Consider treating yourselves to the finest of hampers from Daylesford Organic.
You'll get 45 edible/drinkable items of exquisite quality. Plus 5 items of non-food stuff (also exquisite, you wouldn't find that quality in a 1 pound shop, I believe) for the paltry sum of 1.500 GBP.
That is a bargain! You can, for example, scoff on duck liver pate (250g) with a selection of savoury biscuits (360g), washed down with English sparkling wine (75ml), all organic, for only 90 quid.
https://www.daylesford.com/shop/gift-...
As for the salt: I found there is a use for flakes (Maldon). They are great sprinkled on puff pastry nibbles.
Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. It has taken a while, I got all the paper work together in 2017 but just let it lie, as I still, for some reason, believed that Britain would wake up, and see all the downsides to going it alone in a rampant capitalist world, and we would ask to rejoin again. Well that boat has truly sailed I guess...Anyway I would love to celebrate it somehow, with friends, but there isn't much in the way of Irish restaurants around here. My nearest Irish bar is in Bicester I think. Perhaps I will save it up till spring and do a trip to Ireland 'for the craic' Here is a classic medieval monk from Cork, https://i.postimg.cc/sX3hLYvc/unnamed... and a picture of the 'Pooka' with James Stewart, https://i.postimg.cc/J4Xzbyh4/images.jpg in the film 'Harvey', giving a wonderful performance of someone not really wanting to give up his love of a good 'drink'...
Sláinte...
scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "do you know the full version of the Blake quote, or where it comes from?"According to Wikipedia:
The book draws its title from William Blake's poem "Proverbs of Hell".[10]
In seed ..."
Thanks... time I had a read of his books I think... I have only really looked at the prints and some poetry. I have used a Blake quote about 'contraries' though in my 'Book of Hours'.
“Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence”
- William Blake
Berkley wrote: "Bill wrote: "Who wrote the review Hitchens was quoting, I wonder - not Hitchens himself, I take it?""Robert Paul Wolff, then a professor of philosophy at Amherst, wrote a short review in Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors."
Paul wrote: "My other read of these past few weeks has been my yearly visit into the direness of the Zolaverse. You will die! But there is wine for now!
Emile is the Trent Reznor of the post-Napoleonic era..."
i have the nxt novel in that series "Abbe Mouret" lined up for next year,i have read all the late novels of his up to "La Debacle" and "Germinal " remains one of the best novels i have read
up to "La Debacle" and "Germinal " remains one of the best novels i have read"Oh I agree. I came to Zola through the Belly Of Paris (because I had some odd fascination of Les Halles [and how it ended up becoming a giant transportation hole]), and Germinal is amongst my all time most loved novels as well.
When I went to Paris this September, I went to The Red Wheelbarrow bookstore and just cleaned them out picking up damn near every Zola book I haven't yet read
Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. "Congratulations! You may not have any Irish pubs near - what, not even an 'Oirish' one? (i.e. a fake Irish pub - all too common - or has that fashion ended?) but you can get a Guinness anywhere, or even 'draught' Guinness in a tin, nowadays.
I 'should' have got French nationality when I was living there, but didn't apply in case I was forced to join the Foreign Legion or something (I was under 35 at the time...). I could still do it on the basis of my marriage, and may well go that route, as has my Welsh doctor friend who is married to one of my wife's uni friends... The process sounded rather fun, if quite demanding - an interview in French (He was asked about his favourite film, but he's not a cinema goer! They should have tried opera...) then at the ceremony you have to sing the Marseillaise in a group, so I'd have to learn the words. Do you have to sing 'the Fields of Athenry' to become Irish?
Paul wrote: "up to "La Debacle" and "Germinal " remains one of the best novels i have read"Oh I agree. I came to Zola through the Belly Of Paris (because I had some odd fascination of Les Halles [and how it ..."
La Debacle is also an important record of the disaster of 1870-71, when Bonapartes nephew saw his strange reign end in the disaster at Sedan. I found it very insightful to what that defeat meant for a French nation still in the shadow of another Bonaparte.....
scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. "Congratulations! You may not have any Irish pubs near - what, not even an 'Oiri..."
The only thing that they are interested in, and that I can prove, is that my father was born in Ireland, though of course he was from 'good' protestant stock!... Because of the belief in a 'united' Ireland they felt that they had to offer everyone of Irish birth right, the right to an 'Irish' passport... It applies to children and grandchildren only, so if the Irish heritage is further back it wont count. I believe my son is going to apply for a passport as well, but it is more complicated for him, with more documents being required. The process for grandchildren has been shut down since covid began, and has only just opened up again, though he has been told that, due to the backlog, it will probably take 2 years!... He works in Barcelona so is probably a lot more European than I am feeling...
I would be happy to sing a song or two, to culturally identify, but have not been asked to do so, and, due to my particular heritage, a lot of the songs I know are the N Irish protestant ones, which I don't think would be that appreciated... Still I have been making up for that ever since, so I can sing a fair few Eireish songs as well...
Tam wrote: "I would be happy to sing a song or two, to culturally identify, but have not been asked to do so, and, due to my particular heritage, a lot of the songs I know are the N Irish protestant ones, which I don't think would be that appreciated... I can just visualise you singing "The Sash" at the Irish Embassy!
Of course, if we go back far enough, there was significant protestant support for a 'free Ireland' (in the south, anyway)... the identification of that policy almost exclusively with the Catholics came later - at least, that is my understanding. (Please correct if necessary!)
Paul wrote: "minor work when compared with the likes of Germinal or The Masterpiece"I'm glad you like The Masterpiece, which has been on my list for a very long time.
Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. ."Excellent news! And Cead mile failte!
Francis wrote: "Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. ."Excellent news! And Cead mile failte!"
Go Raibh Maith Agat...
@hushI couldn’t find a suitable brooch to go with the rosy pink hair so have sent a number of lapel badges with ‘I love books’ ‘Read more’…..and so on. As she is another avid reader, not only of horror, hoping this okay.
@Tam
Guess that means I could apply - grandmother born near Cork, grandfather Isle of Man
Georg wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I have just read The Fleur de Sel Murders (Commissaire Dupin #3) by Jean-Luc Bannalecset in Brittany featuring a maverick (..."
£1500 - I could have a good holiday for that - covid permitting!
@Paul - The Conquest of Plassans – As you say, not in the front rank, but I still thought it was a really good read, like an ecclesiastical Trollope, with more edge and more satire, the Bonapartists and the Legitimists and the Church all duking it out for local supremacy.
@Tam - Congratulations on your new citizenship. I would urge any young person who has the chance of obtaining an EU passport to crack on with it. One of the really terrible results of Brexit is how it has closed down the freedom to study, work and live anywhere in the EU.
@Tam - Congratulations on your new citizenship. I would urge any young person who has the chance of obtaining an EU passport to crack on with it. One of the really terrible results of Brexit is how it has closed down the freedom to study, work and live anywhere in the EU.
Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. It has taken a while, I got all the paper work together in 2017 but just let it lie, as I stil..."well done Tam, this vile septic isle is facing a rough future since that disastrous vote in 2016. Its a shame to be living in such a bigoted small pond, after leaving a larger pond of opportunity against my wishes!
You are back in the big time Tam....the real world not the unicorn brexit fantasy
AB76 wrote: "Possibly my last modern fiction read of an inevitably mediocre modern fiction 2021(only 25% of the modern novels read were any good), will be a late novel by Ulster writer Brian Moore.I don't want to rain on any parade, but here I go. Up until the last couple of years, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were remembered as missionaries murdered by the Cayuse in Oregon Territory. There's even a private college - Whitman in SE Washington state named after them.
First there was Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West and now it's Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West tell a different and more complex story.
I hope the Jesuits in your book are not out there trying to Christianize and civilize the Algonquians.
I realize I am being a bit presumptive here, but I will never shake the words of a First nation man Nation whose sorrowful telling (having been forced to leave his family as a child and being sent to Indian school) I heard over the radio more than 20 years ago driving down from Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula.
I've been listening to Zoo Station which is both quite good and so damned depressing. The Nazi cruelty is difficult to stomach, and it will be some time before I am ready to tackle the next in the series.
Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. It has taken a while, I got all the paper work together in 2017 but just let it lie, as I stil..."A good day to read some Flann O'Brien, then. To read him is to be steeped in dark Irish humor.
Paul wrote: "Ciao a tutti,I've retreated into my comfort zone, as it is becoming abundantly clear that my youngest son is one of those rare human beings that does not need more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep a ni..."
The only Calvino I've read was his Italian Folktales. (Very entertaining if read aloud-- my favorite was "The Invisible Grandfather," though the opera buffa of so many of his stories is pleasant reading.)
Occasion For Loving by Nadine Gordimer is in its final third now with apartheid reality starting to slowly enter the story.Gordimer manages in the novels i have read so far, to almost completely remove the South African state from the novels, it exists, the rules are set and its unjust but police, army, official figures are absent. Instead there is the wide world of liberal whites and their relations with the black experience, sometimes dangerous, mostly in that grey area of the minority white anti-apartheid movement
Ann and her african lover Gideon, throughout the novel have lived as they want so far, though he enters their flat in Joburg by the backstairs and is savvy about his place in the system. However Gordimer propels them into the bare facts of the system as they travel out of Joburg together to visit friends of Gideon. Here he is now the "boy" and she the "madam". He cannot stay in any hotels with her and must remain apart,
Ann, a slightly selfish young woman is exposed to what a relationship with the "other" in the vicious apartheid system actually means
scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "Yay!... As of today I am officially Irish!.. and back in the EU... Double reasons to celebrate for me. "Congratulations! You may not have any Irish pubs near - what, not even an 'Oiri..."
Oh you shouldn't have told me that Scarlet. I now have you, in my minds eye, still in the the French Foreign Legion, heading up the vegetarian/vegan phalanx and busying yourself setting up 'celebratory bake off' competitions where the contestants have to bake 'Welsh Cakes' at dawn, using only mud sand and left-over shaving-water.. You wily old dessert fox!....
AB76 wrote: "still zero comments on Gordimer and South Africa (Russell excepted) am really suprised, thought she would be popular here and well read but have seen almost zero engagement with posts about her. i ..."I didn't reply as I couldn't remember which of her books I'd read, as it was so long ago, but looking at the plot list I think it was The Conservationist and July's People. She can draw characters quite well, and is certainly a 'good' writer as i remember them, but I found that her plots seemed a sort writing by numbers thing. She has a political issue (plenty of choice in the S Africa, of those particular times!) and the characters are hung about, a bit like puppets, to illustrate a particular incident or relationship problem. I do remember thinking that the dead body coming out of the ground again, in 'The Conservationist', was a bit of a heavy-handed metaphor use. Still it was so long ago that I read them that they have left only a vague imprint on me, so, sorry, not a lot of help really...from me,,,
I preferred Gillian Slovo's writing as it seemed more anarchistic by nature, so the plot points were much less predictable to me, and yet could be gut-wrenching in impact as well (Ice Road). I like to be surprised...
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "still zero comments on Gordimer and South Africa (Russell excepted) am really suprised, thought she would be popular here and well read but have seen almost zero engagement with posts ..."interesting Tam, i'm reading her slowly and chronologically, a book every odd year or two, so this was the latest in that line
Having just finished "Occasion or Loving", i would give it a 3 star status, sometimes it reached the heights of a brilliant novel about a certain time and place, where apartheid South Africa becomes the world i am living in too, other times i felt it was rather too much and with an adulterous relationship at the heart, morally lax.
My interest in the white fringes of the decaying british diaspora remains undimmed and i will read more Gordimer. I am suprised that entirely enclosed white world of South Africa hasnt been written about more, Gordimer covers the liberal whites in mixed company, i wonder if a critical afrikaner language classic has been written about whites only. The closest to that i have found was "Jacaranda In The Night" by HC Bosman, but that was in english and he was interested in all people, which is the best way of course
I suppose i would like to analyse and read an honest novel about the Afrikaaner world and its hopes and fears in the 1950-90 period. Galguts booker winner covers a similar topic but not afrikaner protaganists i think. Rian Malans "My Traitors Heart" was a great non-fiction Afrikaner description of life in that period
AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "still zero comments on Gordimer and South Africa (Russell excepted) am really suprised, thought she would be popular here and well read but have seen almost zero engagement..."There is her, 'unauthorised' biography I guess. I dont think you would turn to Nadine Gordimer for 'the truth', necessarily, of a particular matter. And of course the Jewish south africans were a subset of South African life all of their own. I met many, in the mid 70's when I lived in Israel, who rather acted as if they had a very privileged life, which I guess they did have, with a somewhat 'paternalistic' view of black people. I could sort of see why it was that Israelis believed that they totally built Israel, and that it was nothing before Israel was founded, just a scrubby patch with a few nomadic sheep herders on it, was their description on the whole..
What puzzles me was the Boers. They were on the bottom of the pile, (Dutch, German and French Huguenot's) and so truly knew the cost of being discriminated against, before they set out to colonise S Africa. I can't understand why they did not seem to share any empathy/sympathy with the Africans that they were colonising.
No doubt I am making a few generalisations here but sometimes it is very hard to get to 'the heart of the matter'. Interesting that you take against the adultery etc. in the book. Many people choose particular books because of the adultery! As a way of exploring the lives that they cannot/are afraid to lead themselves ?... perhaps. I'm agnostic on that particular issue...
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "still zero comments on Gordimer and South Africa (Russell excepted) am really suprised, thought she would be popular here and well read but have seen almost ze..."i'm quite moral on adultery, maybe a bit old fashioned!
The Afrikaners were a mix of those three races and some black admixture too but people forget the period after the Boer War saw a huge change in their status. They went from being rebellious farming people constantly finding the British encroaching on their settlements to the majority white population, (with importantly electoral dominance of the new union of south africa)
Roughly from WW1 onwards till 1990, it was Afrikaners who elected the leaders and dominated the white nation (as of course the non-whites were excluded). Hence by the time the apartheid regime began after the 1948 election, the Afrikaner was top dog and had been for 20-30 years (where the British ruled from afar but the main political parties and leaders were Afrikaners)
Statistics show that from the 1950s to 1990s, Afrikaners became more urban, more educated and more prosperous, clearly at the expense of the non-whites but within the white world they were the ones progressing. Even with the afrikaaner language rules (military spoke Afrikaans first), they remained more bi-lingual than other whites and by 1990 had dominated South Africa for 80 years
Demographically from 1900, the Afrikaners were roughly 60% of all whites,only in Natal(the last settled region) were British Whites outnumbering the Afrikaners and that roughly remains till today. What has changed is that around 500,000 British South Africans have left the country since 1994
Of course there was always the poorer Afrikaaners who did not benefit so much.
Jewish South Africans were a small minority, around 4% of whites and suffered discrimination. Anthony Sher, the actor, described his military service as being a class system. Afrikaaners top of the pile, then the British and at the bottom the Jews. I know quite a few south african jews and helped some trace their ancestry back to the Baltic states
On the Boers being underdogs and refugees when they came to Africa, i guess decades of fighting the British who they saw as opressors gave them a victim status which they quickly forgot from 1900-1990 and were keen to erase, though black author Zakes Mda in one of his novels makes a point that the Afrikaner was more honest in his behaviour with non-whites, than the British who hi behind words and deception, afrikaaners were blunter
Bill wrote: "The LRB review of Ravelstein by Christopher Hitchens quotes an early review of The Closing of the American Mind which suggests, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that Bellow himself is the author"That's an awfully po-mo take on its authorship!
And now, Bill
He had an extraordinary fondness for Rossini and for eighteen-century opera as well. Baroque Italian music had to be performed on the original ancient instruments. [...]
Above him and below, three stories of the appartment building, like it or not, had to listen to Frescobaldi, Corelli, Pergolesi, to the Italian Maiden in Algiers
1. a) Find the intruder.
Next classic novel on list is part of my ongoing study of revolutionary era american texts, fiction and non-fiction.Jefferson's Notes on Virginia and The Federalist Papers formed the first part, with The Pamphlet Debate currently on my bedside table.
The novel is called Wieland by Charles Brockden-Brown,a Quaker, written in 1798. I am looking foward to the style and the approach to its subject matter, it is commonly described as a "gothic" novel.
Slawkenbergius wrote: "Above him and below, three stories of the appartment building, like it or not, had to listen to Frescobaldi, Corelli, Pergolesi, to the Italian Maiden in Algiers"Part of the reason that I thought Gesualdo was more than a randomly chosen name for a character.
I believe Gillian Slovo was mentioned, in relation to Sth Africa. I can highly recommend her memoir about her parents, Joe Slovo and Ruth First, Every Secret Thing.
Lass wrote: "I believe Gillian Slovo was mentioned, in relation to Sth Africa. I can highly recommend her memoir about her parents, Joe Slovo and Ruth First, Every Secret Thing."thanks Lass
Ruth First wrote an excellent memoir about her time incarcerated under the apartheid regime, i read it earlier this year:
Tam wrote: "I now have you, in my minds eye, still in the the French Foreign Legion, heading up the vegetarian/vegan phalanx...Haha! Well, my ambition to join the Légion étrangère was pretty ephemeral... and lasted for the duration of a radio adaptation of the impossibly romantic Beau Geste in the 1950s... I was much less enamoured of the Legion following a lengthy queueing session at the Cannes gendarmerie in 1980 to apply for a carte de sejour along with several dozen North Africans, to be met with a prominent recruitment poster above the desk inviting applications for... the French Foreign Legion!
scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "I now have you, in my minds eye, still in the the French Foreign Legion, heading up the vegetarian/vegan phalanx...Haha! Well, my ambition to join the Légion étrangère was pretty ephe..."
Not Algeria, but I have just downloaded Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam which I remember as an excellent read - of course my memory is not quite what is used to be.
My former husband served in Vietnam (US Army) and his older brother who flew fighter jets (US Air Force) was shot down over Laos while carrying bombs. He didn't survive. And why, you may ask, was a fighter jet on a bombing mission? I certainly don't have a good answer.
I notice AB mentioned "Wieland" by Charles Brockden-Brown. I read this a few years ago, when I was living in PA (it is very much a PA novel). Very good and more than deserving of the Gothic label. I've even visited Brockden-Brown's grave in the magnificent Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, poised above the Schuykill River (and the Schuykill Expressway, about which there is nothing express at all). The general vicinity of the cemetery is where the novel is set, though it would have been rural then. Bill will know much more about all this than I do.
A cynical newspaper editor is pondering the headline for tomorrow's rag, and comes up with:Optimism a Duty, Says the Chancellor!
Sound familiar?
The book:
by Erich KästnerTime and place: Berlin, around 1930.
Bill wrote: "Part of the reason that I thought Gesualdo was more than a randomly chosen name for a character."Yeah, but who's the intruder?
Mod
After Colette by Joan LingardI don't remember who recommended this book - Lass? Anne? Anyway, thank you, it was a very enjoyable read.
Amy, French mother, Scottish father, is the granddaughter of a childhood friend of Colette's. As the book begins, her cousin is trying to find her. No-one in Paris where Amy has been living for many years has heard from her for 3 months.
Amy has been making a living as a performance artist, doing one-woman shows about Colette. We learn about Colette's life through Amy's performance, Amy's life, and the lives of the Scottish and French families.
Veufveuve wrote: "I notice AB mentioned "Wieland" by Charles Brockden-Brown. I read this a few years ago, when I was living in PA (it is very much a PA novel). Very good and more than deserving of the Gothic label. ..."thanks Veuf, i think he is the first Quaker novelist i have come accross since dutch writer Jan De Hartog(who was a convert) and i am looking foward to reading it.
I found some info that PA in 1780s-90s was a very religiously plural state with a strong Presbyterian and German Calvinist population and of course a significant Quaker one too. Though that Quaker influence waned over time,(the Quaker link is Wiliam Penn of course...)
scarletnoir wrote: "A cynical newspaper editor is pondering the headline for tomorrow's rag, and comes up with:Optimism a Duty, Says the Chancellor!
Sound familiar?
The book: [bookcover:Going to the Dogs: The Sto..."
i loved this when i read it about a decade ago...
Lass wrote: "I believe Gillian Slovo was mentioned, in relation to Sth Africa. I can highly recommend her memoir about her parents, Joe Slovo and Ruth First, Every Secret Thing."I was so looking forward to reading this only a few months ago. And I was sooo disappointed. Luckily it was my own copy, not the library's, so I could follow Dorothy Parker's advice about 30% in.
There was no clear structure to it. It went back and forth in time. Even worse: it was so vague. Joe Slovo is away. Where is he? Travelling to meet comrades, to plan something? In hiding? The family sans Joe has to move to a far away area for some time. Why? And why that place? Some months later they can return to their old life. WTF happened? I have no idea.
This book seemed to be mainly about Gillian Slovo. Her "unfinished business", her resentment, mainly of Ruth. Committed political activists probably don't make very good parents. Fathers get away with it (a man has to do what a man has to do), mothers don't. Nothing new here.
This book didn't even come close to deliver what I had expected.
And I found it poorly written.
So: sorry to disagree, Lass.
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate: Vol. 1, 1764–1772 (other topics)Herzog (other topics)
Ravelstein (other topics)
Herzog (other topics)
After Colette (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)
I was interested in it first as a famous film I have yet to see, and in the book as the source of that film but also as a best-selling novel in its own right. Art made for propaganda purposes is off-putting, no doubt about it, but the more distant in time, the easier I find it is to take a dispassionate view - though you can never tell for sure how you'll react until you actually try watching or reading the thing. So I'll likely make the attempt at least, one of these days.