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What Are We Reading?22 November 2021
Looks like a piece of gothic fiction could make the transition to the futuristic genre
Slawkenbergius wrote: "For me the only interesting thing in Vile Bodies is the portrait of the Bright Young Things clique Waugh knew so well."Do you have a favourite? I always forget that you're a fan.
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "You and AB might possibly be interested in Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney ..."I was rather underwhelmed by The Tenderness of Wolves and it's put me off Ms Penn..."
If you didn't care for that, I don't suppose you'd like 'Under a Pole Star' either... as I say, we're all different, with different tastes! As for 'Wolves'... interesting fact which I only recently discovered - Penney suffered from agoraphobia around the time she was writing that, and so never travelled to Canada - so it was researched and imagined instead. Maybe you prefer the real-life observations of the other authors.
Slawkenbergius wrote: "Bill wrote: "The thing I find funny about that cover is that the standard cliché of librarian-into-seductress transformation is that the librarian takes off her glasses and lets down her hair, neither of which evidently proved necessary here."That's the standard Howard Hawks routine..
Like this from 'The Big Sleep', you mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTT0F...
(Marlowe's eyesight must have been pretty poor if he needed that girl to remove her glasses...)
Hawks is one of my favourite directors - 'Bringing up Baby' is hilarious... he always kept things moving at a good clip.
The Ideal World of Dictatorship: Daily Life and Party Rule in the GDR, 1971-89 is so packed with information and detail, its a joy to read and i'm only half way through. The best books are the ones that take a long time to read but the standard never dipsOne area of the Eastern Bloc finances which becomes starker every year i read more about it is the extensive system of western loans to all countries in the supposed socialist heaven. The DDR was by the 1980s almost bailed out by the BDR and its loans,the actual funds being used to bolster the finances of the DDR in the west. Wolle comments that even in the west by the mid 80s, the DDR was still seen as the most solid Eastern Bloc economy, quite unlike the reality when it was just a rather milder basket case than the others
scarletnoir wrote: " The Tenderness of Wolves and..." never travelled to Canada - so it was researched and imagined instead"Now you come to mention it that makes sense - it just didn't ring true (not that I've ever been to Canada ...). I do enjoy real life exploration books - just started on Erebus: The Story of a Ship - but then again I think the test of good fiction is that it's 'real'. Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books are realer than real IMO. You get inside the characters' heads in a way that a non-fiction account just can't.
No books have been read I am afraid... in the last two weeks. Though quite a few are waving at me trying to catch my attention. I think they are secretly breeding, judging by the growing piles. So instead here is a review of a visit to an art Gallery in Cambridge. We visited Kettle's Yard, in Cambridge. An art gallery that I was last in 43 years ago!. It was lovely to have a tour of the house which was owned by Jim Eade and his wife Helen. He was the 'Modern' art curator for the Tate. The house was redesigned from 3 knocked together cottages. Its a very nice space. They filled the house with their choice of modern art. Its interesting to see that by far the most paintings, by an individual artist, were by Cornish retired fisherman Alfred Wallace, who is referred to as a British 'nieve' painter, a sort of Henri Rousseau of the sea. He didn't start painting until he was 72, after his wife died, so gives some hope for the late-developers in life. I have included one of his paintings here. https://i.postimg.cc/rwtxZNHZ/IMG-015...
Otherwise there is a 'shadow' portrait of us, from a nearby church which informs us as to who is on the modern 'acceptable' list of congregants!.... https://i.postimg.cc/jS8mvKG4/IMG-015... And Cambridge was not lacking in ancient Christian input it seems. The older ones are very small!...
I did very much like the painting of the blackbird in the mini conservatory that they had inserted between two rooms. https://i.postimg.cc/XJD9D1nh/IMG-015... It's well worth a visit for any one who happens to be in Cambridge. Its free, but you have to book in advance for the house tour. It's interesting how grey, with muted colouring, these examples of British modernist art are, on the whole, compared to the European modernists which are full of lively colour and striking forms.
Jim and Helen kept 'open house' for many years, and even let people 'borrow' some of the paintings. A lovely idea to me... a painting library. So they ran a 'salon' I guess. It is much expanded since I was last there, and now has a separate gallery attached showing modern artists work. It also has a cafe and a shop and an 'education' centre.
I read the first five stories (chapters? I'm not sure) in Italo Calvino's "The Complete Cosmicomics" this morning - a gift and certainly not something I would normally lean toward; but I've enjoyed them a great deal so far: funny, sad, intelligent, surprising, and sometimes just rather lovely.
Elizabeth Strout on Beeb R4 Open Book….Now!
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: " The Tenderness of Wolves and..." never travelled to Canada - so it was researched and imagined instead"Now you come to mention it that makes sense - it just did..."
Some months ago I was looking forward to reading
Mainly because it was set on Kamchatka, where the author had lived for some years.
I threw in the towel after ~140 pages. I didn't care for any of the, at a guess, 27 protagonists the writer had introduced so far.
I dreaded that, according to the "dramatis personae" list, there were at least another 19 lurking in the off(er)ing.
I dreaded reading more of the tokenist "native-culture-modern-world-racism-..." gobbledegook.
I found the descriptions of the landscape as nondescript as the people.
Everything felt artificial and constructed.
How many of the truly great writers drew on personal experience? Or, to turn it on it's head: how many great books ever written drew on personal experience?
I finished The Banquet Years by Roger Shattuck. This is a hugely interesting book and it would take a very long review to do it justice. Suffice it to say that there are four excellent, lively, short biographies of Rousseau, Satie, Jarry and Apollinaire, each followed by a serious-minded, incisive, but still readable analysis of the poetics and meaning of their work, and then an insightful conclusion that pulls it all together, reflecting, for example, on how juxtaposition as opposed to connection began with their creations, though it was the Cubists and others who made it famous; how a self-reflexive consciousness, the idea, so alien to the Renaissance spirit, of art becoming its own subject, can be traced back to Coleridge and Stendhal; and how these four ultra-non-conformist artists belonged to no school yet shared a common attitude of conforming solely to their inner selves. A cultural history that takes in the whole Parisian avant-garde of 1885-1914 and beyond. Yeats was present at the riotous first performance of Ubu Roi, and ends his note of the evening: “After us the Savage God.”
A good example of what AB just said - the best books are the ones that take a long time to read but the standard never dips.
A good example of what AB just said - the best books are the ones that take a long time to read but the standard never dips.
Tam wrote: "No books have been read I am afraid... in the last two weeks. Though quite a few are waving at me trying to catch my attention. I think they are secretly breeding, judging by the growing piles. So ..."It’s a very pleasant small gallery. Sometimes they have ‘art days”, don’t know really what you call them when people may come in and paint or print with a local artist and my daughter was one of the artists for a long time. I wonder if you went to Cambridge Contemporary Art opposite Kings where she exhibits.
Georg wrote: "how many great books ever written drew on personal experience?..."Some great books came out of WW1. My favourite (though I haven't read them all) is Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End. The war parts are based very much on FMF's own war service, and the pre- and post-war parts ring very true. I recently re-read all four volumes consecutively, which was a great experience - reinforcing what I'd said to myself each of the other times I read it - 'this is what it MUST have been like to go through WW1'.
Compare that to Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War - an unconvincing late 20th century imagining of what it was like.
AB76 wrote: "my experience with Waugh, spans from the early comedies to the later works like the WW2 triology and Brideshead."You do have a point, those are very well written novels. Most people wince at Brideshead's unrestrained Catholicism, but one must look beyond the religious themes to get the wider spiritual picture.
SydneyH wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "For me the only interesting thing in Vile Bodies is the portrait of the Bright Young Things clique Waugh knew so well."Do you have a favourite? I always forget that you're a fan"
Not unlike AB76: Brideshead Revisited, Decline and Fall, Scoop, Sword of Honour...
But I haven't read all his novels, so this list is not definitive.
scarletnoir wrote: "Like this from 'The Big Sleep', you mean?"Yep, that's the one. Unforgetable.
Mod
That sounds really interesting - I've just ordered it!
Slawkenbergius wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "For me the only interesting thing in Vile Bodies is the portrait of the Bright Young Things clique Waugh knew so well."Do you have a favourite? I always for..."
oddly i am yet to read "Scoop", its been calling me for decades but i am not too keen on satires of awful situations and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia was awful
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Georg wrote: "how many great books ever written drew on personal experience?..."Some great books came out of WW1. My favourite (though I haven't read them all) is Ford Madox Ford's [book:Parade's..."
When I was writing my post I also thought about a WWI book based on personal experience. "All Quiet on the Western Front", one of my formative reading experiences.
Agree on "Birdsong".
Thanks for the FMF recommendation.
Gpfr wrote: "Russell wrote: " The Banquet Years by Roger Shattuck..."
That sounds really interesting - I've just ordered it!"
I hope you enjoy it. I forgot to mention that it has maybe 50 illustrations, but they're all smudgy black-and-white, so rather useless when it comes to the paintings. However, I found I could call up everything on line.
That sounds really interesting - I've just ordered it!"
I hope you enjoy it. I forgot to mention that it has maybe 50 illustrations, but they're all smudgy black-and-white, so rather useless when it comes to the paintings. However, I found I could call up everything on line.
We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morning ploughing and shoveling. I find that on these occasions I think about a poem by Billy Collins, which I now can't find. There's an older man humming his thoughts as he shovels the snow from his front path. He falls gently sideways into a snow bank, and that is the end of him. You assume it was a heart attack. It's hardly a comedy situation, and yet the way Collins tells it you can't help laughing.
Russell wrote: "We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morning ploughing and shoveling. I find that on these occasions I think a..."We had a couple of inches last night, mostly gone today except for the tops of shrubs and bushes looking like a mad cook has been going around with a bowl of white icing - cupcakes without a cherry on top.
The only Billy Collins poem about shovelling snow that I know by Collins is this one
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shove...
CCCubbon wrote: "...The only Billy Collins poem about shoveling snow that I know by Collins is this one [Shoveling Snow with Buddha]..."
Yes, a good example of the Collins style. I also found ones by him called "Snow" and "Snow Day" but not the one I'm thinking of, which might even be called something like "Chicago". If I find it I'll post it.
Yes, a good example of the Collins style. I also found ones by him called "Snow" and "Snow Day" but not the one I'm thinking of, which might even be called something like "Chicago". If I find it I'll post it.
Russell wrote: "We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morning ploughing and shoveling. I find that on these occasions I think a..."Even my little bit of S Derbyshire had snow that settled this afternoon. Not at shovelling levels though.
giveusaclue wrote: "Russell wrote: "We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morning ploughing and shoveling. I find that on these occ..."snow here by 6pm, a light dusting, it suprised me..., its very cold,, possibly the coldest 48 hrs for a decade down here...4c by day and 1c by night.
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Russell wrote: "We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morning ploughing and shoveling. I fi..."https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021...
😀🍺
giveusaclue wrote: "...Telegraph..."
Great article. Like!
Great article. Like!
Georg wrote: "How many of the truly great writers drew on personal experience? Or, to turn it on its head: how many great books ever written drew on personal experience?"I don't think there is any simple equivalence between personal experience and great writing... great books are powerful because of the author's skill in making the reader feel, or believe in, the experiences being described - the ability to create empathy, if you like. (Other writing styles are available; I'll leave others to comment on those.)
As for 'personal experience' - it can be difficult to determine in supposedly autobiographical works how much is 'true', how much is exaggerated, and how much is made up or borrowed from someone else. I rarely read travel books nowadays, but recall very much enjoying Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia and Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar; however, I understand that both authors deviated some way from presenting anything resembling the 'literal truth'!
scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "How many of the truly great writers drew on personal experience? Or, to turn it on its head: how many great books ever written drew on personal experience?"I don't think there is an..."
i think all authors draw on their lives, especially in their early books, so many first novels contain almost autobiographical information, jumbled and sliced, the names are changed etc
whether a novel has even been written that was almost 80-100% personal experience without any artistic licence would be an interesting study but would need a living author i think...though the Knauusgard autofiction genre has changed that when clearly personal experience is central to the novel
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Russell wrote: "We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morning ploughing and sh..."didnt an english author write a novel about people stuck in a pub high in the hills...the name escapes me...written in the 1950s
AB76 wrote: "whether a novel has even been written that was almost 80-100% personal experience without any artistic licence would be an interesting study"TLS was full of praise for Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles. So I read them and really enjoyed them.
Then I read EJH's autobiography Slipstream: A Memoir and Artemis Cooper's biography Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence.
The Cazalet Chronicles were just her own life slightly fictionalised - did I feel cheated! Not sure why, but I did.
not really book related but anyone know why the Guardian constantly censors my comments on the BBC. I'm pro-BBC as well, do those three letters generate a porn filter or something???
AB76 wrote (131): "scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "How many of the truly great writers drew on personal experience? Or, to turn it on its head: how many great books ever written drew on personal experience?"Ok, I can see I have not expressed myself very well.
When I said "draw on experience" I didn't mean what I would call "ordinary" experiece. I wouldn't think "autobiographical" when a white middle-class American writer writes about white, middle-class Americans.
I rather meant drastic events/experiences. And how substantial these were for the whole work.
Dickens' was traumatized by events in his childhood. There are obvious autobiographical elements, mainly in Oliver Twist and Little Dorrit. But they only make up a small, unsubstantial part of these books, let alone the whole body of his work.
The opposite is true for Remarque's novel.
i think all authors draw on their lives....
I disagree.
This is certainly not the case when it comes to the genres spy, crime, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, gothic...
Nor historical fiction.
Nor a large chunk of contemporary fiction.
Unless you want to argue, for example, that Toni Morrison, on account of being black, drew on her own life in her books.
What is left are novels like Remarque's, auto-fiction and romans a clef.
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote (131): "scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "How many of the truly great writers drew on personal experience? Or, to turn it on its head: how many great books ever written drew on personal ..."good point Georg
Georg wrote: "When I said "draw on experience" I didn't mean what I would call "ordinary" experience...I rather meant drastic events/experiences. And how substantial these were for the whole work....
What is left are novels like Remarque's, auto-fiction and romans a clef.
I wonder how you would categorise Erich Kästner's
- the original title is Fabian. Die Geschichte eines Moralisten, which I am currently reading?
It seems to me to describe 'ordinary experience', but in extraordinary times - the decline of the Weimar republic, circa 1930. In addition, the protagonist is clearly deeply attached to his mother, which was also the case for the author.
I strongly suspect that the protagonist's views on society, humanity and politics mirror those of the author, but don't know this for certain.
scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "When I said "draw on experience" I didn't mean what I would call "ordinary" experience...I rather meant drastic events/experiences. And how substantial these were for the whole work...."
great novel, we need more Kastner in english, not just the Emil stories
Totally hooked on Wieland
by 18th century Quaker novelist Charles Brockden-Brown,The Brock, as i calls him, brings anxiety and unease to a former idyll on the outskirts of Philly(the 1798 version). By his style of language, the pacing of events and a constant form of enquiry into illusions vs reality, this is a top notch gothic horror tale, based around suggestion more than reality so far. I feel any horror tale that hovers around "suggestion" is the more unsettling and chilling.
Carwin, so far, has drifted in and out of the tale, leaving unease wherever he goes but as yet, all is unexplained, what i call the best part of novels of mystery, where the mind is trying to find a reason, a motive or an explanation, sadly the denouement can be less satisfying sometimes. I'm almost half way in now
AB76 wrote: "great novel, we need more Kastner in english, not just the Emil stories"How many adult novels did he write? I saw somewhere that 'Fabian' was the only one - unless that was the only one translated into English, which on reflection I suspect is/was the case. He did write an autobiography, which should be interesting - as he was brought up in Dresden...
scarletnoir wrote (137): "Georg wrote: "When I said "draw on experience" I didn't mean what I would call "ordinary" experience...I rather meant drastic events/experiences. And how substantial these were for the whole work...."
Hm , I'll try
Unlike Remarque Kästner was, from around the mid 20s, a political writer. So that had probably much more influence on Fabian than autobiographical stuff. The relationship with his mother, his "Lebensmensch", was personal. I do not think she influenced his writing at all. That he mentioned her so often was more a way to declare his love for her.
Remarque's AQotWF was a very personal novel, WWI made him a pacifist/antimilitarist. He never worked as a political journalist and was, afaik, not politically engaged during the Weimar republic.
The only other Remarque novel I read was "Arc de Triomphe". I remember that I was underwhelmed, not only by the story, but also by his writing style. But that was a long time ago.
In any case I think the rest of his litereary output is all but forgotten.
Not something you could say about Kästner.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "great novel, we need more Kastner in english, not just the Emil stories"How many adult novels did he write? I saw somewhere that 'Fabian' was the only one - unless that was the only ..."
i dont think he wrote much other adult fiction but i would be interested in his non-fiction
Hi everyone! I hope you've all had a nice November :)This month I read -
1. Battle Royale (volume 2) by Koushun Takami -
800+ page reading in second language marathon completed. It was good for my brain but I was very glad to reach the final page.
2. Dune by Frank Herbert -
Great fun! Loved the film too (saw it twice).
3. Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert -
Much less good fun! But worth it to see the rest of Paul's story.
4. One Year Of Meeting 70 People On A Meeting People Site And Recommending Them Books They'll Probably Like by Nanako Hanada
To be honest, I chose this because the incredibly long title made me laugh. Hanada worked as a shop manager at a branch of Village Vanguard (a quirky books/general goods chain) but was becoming disillusioned by the shop's drifting from bookselling to more lucrative quirky goods, and was also at an impasse in her personal life due to separating from her husband. So she joins up with a website for meeting strangers for thirty minutes at a time, hoping to find some direction in her life. She recommends a book to everyone she meets based on their conversation and general aura.
This was an interesting, surprisingly frank and non-saccharine little memoir that also works as sort of autotherapy for Hanada as she tries to work out what she wants in her career and personal life. Picked up lots of interesting books to dead, too.
5. You Died: The Dark Souls Companion by Keza MacDonald and Jason Killingsworth
Recently I became obsessed with the gothic, Lovecraftian videogame "Bloodborne", made by the idiosyncratic Japanese game company From Software and game director Hidetaka Miyazaki. It's such a dense game that I'm still playing it (main story is pretty much complete but I am playing through the optional DLC extra content).
I was fascinated by how the game was designed, the Shakespearean British voice cast, the psychology behind the obsessive cultlike fandom for From Software games etc. But Bloodborne is maybe their second most popular game after their megahit franchise, Dark Souls (which I've not played), so it was easier to find a comprehensive book on that game rather than Bloodborne.
I had mixed feelings on the book. I found the chapters on localisation, Miyazaki's design process/inspiration, the history of development etc absolutely fascinating. But chapters felt short and shallow. Too much time was given to anecdotes about fans playing (or meeting their spouses, or finding certain bits hard etc). I also found the long and detailed descriptions of the atmosphere of each area (rather than descriptions of the technical design of the areas) frustrating - better to play the actual game.
I was grateful for a peek behind the curtain at a fascinating company with a visionary president, but felt the book was underbaked and a little shallow.
6. The Promise by Damon Galgut
Strange and bleak, but really absorbing. I wasn't maybe in the right frame of mind for how sad and dark it was, and in some ways I think its view of humanity was a little too nihilist for me. But there was some lovely, careful character stuff in there, and some flashes of brutal humour.
Not really sure about the church on the farm grounds plotline. That didn't seem to go anywhere, particularly.
Miri wrote: "3. Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert -Much less good fun! But worth it to see the rest of Paul's story."
"Much less" because of the tone of the book and its main subject, or because you liked it less?
Even if it's not on par with the brilliant Dune, lacking its epic-ness and very sensory depiction of the desert world, I've found it really quite interesting and thought the ending apposite (view spoiler) I was not super fond of the image of the fishy Steersman sloshing in his orange tank though. And I also didn't particularly like teenager Alia - she's become less wise as the years went on, more self-centred, volatile, and, of course, horny (ok, a teenager then - seems it doesn't matter how much of a pre-born you are). For having read some reviews of the 3rd book, as I couldn't decide whether to leave it there or read the original trilogy, it seems it was all intended.
I didn't mind the dark turn but thought there was more "padding" and lulls, and while I understand Paul and Alia's uh... special nature, I prefer to read about more "human" characters like Leto or Jessica (in this book I guess Chani and Irulan).I'm glad I read it - my Dune fan friend told me it's basically the ending of the first Dune, if it was shorter it could even seamlessly fit into that book. So it wad good for a sense of closure. But I wasn't as enthralled by it as the first one.
After the first Dune was impressively not particularly leery and icky for a sci fi book written by a man in the sixties Dune Messiah certainly had some uh... questionable stuff, especially wrt the depiction of Alia.
CCCubbon wrote: "Tam wrote: "No books have been read I am afraid... in the last two weeks. Though quite a few are waving at me trying to catch my attention. I think they are secretly breeding, judging by the growin..."Didn't get to see much else in Cambridge apart from an exhibition in the Fitzwilliam Museum on archeological stuff from tribal ancient societies in Kazakhstan. Interesting hats... off... to the priestesses of those days... Is your daughter still in Cambridge?.. I was a community artist in London, around 1986 I think. I had all kinds of 'client' groups.
My favourite group were the boys in the borstal, in Shepards Bush. A very lively lot... Though some heart-breaking stories behind them...
I aquired an extra job with SCOPE, but I resigned when the woman who ran the centre told me off for not making the lovely group of mostly stroke victims spend all of the workshop time taking the lids off the paint tubes. She said you are not employed to teach art, you are employed to make them use their hands, even if it takes the whole session to do so. Somehow I think that they needed some food for the soul, rather than just an automaton to make them unscrew a lid... I hope SCOPE has moved on from those days...
Miri wrote: "I didn't mind the dark turn but thought there was more "padding" and lulls, and while I understand Paul and Alia's uh... special nature, I prefer to read about more "human" characters like Leto or ..."Oh, totally agree in your comparison between the two, and I also am glad to have read it to have some kind of closure. If I had to rate Dune, I'd probably give it a high 4.5/5, while I'd probably give a low 3.5 to Dune Messiah. I guess Herbert also thought that one (or two technically) Reverend Mothers were enough for Dune Messiah, but I very much missed Lady Jessica's voice. I would have loved to see what she had to say, getting confronted to her "special nature" kids as they grew in power and accrued worshippers. And yes, I think this would have made a great Book 4 in the original Dune as is, or with less "padding" (although I already felt that Book 3 went by a bit too fast, so with a 4th volume, esp. one including Jessica, that'd have been massive!).
I actually liked - well, "appreciated" is more the correct term, as I preferred him when he was less powerful - the transformation of Paul, becoming less and less connected to the people he loves, something you could feel already in how Book 3 is written. I think it conveyed very well one of the many costs of having prescience, to lose a sense of humanity together with a sense of time, everything becoming more abstract and evanescent, though at the same time, paradoxically ineluctable. I kept thinking during Dune: if you want to avoid the Jihad, step away now! Now! NOW! And of course, the more one waits, the more, no matter what the paths, the Jihad comes to be.
My husband had an interesting comment though: of all the paths he can see, Paul constantly tries to choose the less evil one (however fucked they might be), but what about acting towards what he can not see, all that is dark to his vision in between these clear paths?
As for Dune Messiah making less of a comfortable read than Dune, yes to that too. As I've mentioned elsewhere, there were a few antiquated notions in Dune though (the fact that only a male Bene Gesserit could become, like, you know, the Messiah; that the -poor- traitor was very much following the "yellow peril" trope; that the villain was a gay ephebophile), but even some of these were subverted to some extent.
scarletnoir wrote(140): "AB76 wrote: "great novel, we need more Kastner in english, not just the Emil stories"How many adult novels did he write? I saw somewhere that 'Fabian' was the only one - unless that was the only ..."
The only other one I know of is "Drei Männer im Schnee" (Three Men in the Snow, not translated, I mentioned that in the "Hotel Novels" some weeks ago)
The only autobiographical work I know of is "Als ich ein kleiner Junge war" (When I was a Little Boy) which is about his childhood.
How many of his childrens's books have beed translated?
Not "Die Konferenz der Tiere" ( The Animal's Conference) apparently. Which is a shame. Written over 70 years ago I am sure children would still love it: rescued by animals because the adults are letting the world go to the dogs...
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Russell wrote: "We had about eight inches of snow on Friday night - quite a lot for this early in the season - so I spent much of yesterday morn..."Agatha Christie The Sittaford Mystery?
Also Sherlock Holmes The Hound of the Baskervilles?
@Georg - thanks for your comments on Kästner and Remarque. I have now finished 'Fabian' but too tired to write a review today... I liked it, though considerably less than AQotWF, which is brilliant. According to Wikipedia, Kästner was also a pacifist, but I know that you have corrected their entries in the past, so... when I write my thoughts, I expect/fear some more corrections!
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my experience with Waugh, spans from the early comedies to the later works like the WW2 triology and Brideshead.
I found the WW2 novel based in Crete "Officers and Gentlemen" to be the best of his novels in its approach to a dreadful and serious situation, the british defeat on Crete and "Brideshead" impressed me with its themes