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What Are We Reading?22 November 2021
scarletnoir wrote: "@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..."I hope I didn't come over as correcting you when I meant to correct wikipedia.
Kästner was conscripted when he was 17. There is no doubt that WWI turned him into an outspoken, even passionate, pacifist/antimilitarist for the rest of his life. That is: outspoken up to the Vietnam war.
I don't think he wrote about his personal experience.
But two of his most famous poems, written around 1930, deal with it:
"Kennst du das Land wo die Kanonen blühn?" (Do you know the land where the canons bloom?) A take on Goethe's "Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen (lemons) blühn?".
And "Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten" (If we had won the war).
AQotWF is in a league of its own. I wouldn't compare anything with it. I liked Fabian, but I think it is about 5 leagues removed.
all his life
CCCubbon wrote: "Tam wrote: "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 br..."Does she have a web site, presence, name, on the internet... so I can look her up and see what she does?
Georg wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "@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..."i think the Great War has given us some amazing pieces of fiction or memoir, of the best alongside "All Quiet...." iis"Under Fire" by Henri Barbusse,
a very unsettling and death scarred novel of the french experienceOn the austrian side i would recommend "The Good Soldier Svejk", i have yet to find a Russian novel of WW1
I knew that the Marvel comics I read in my youth could be objectively proven superior to their modern cinematic incarnations, and here is the Council of Real Artistic Pronouncements to verify the fact:
https://thenib.com/remember-when/
AB76 wrote: "i think the Great War has given us some amazing pieces of fiction or memoir...Indeed it did, unfortunately. Apart from the outstanding All Quiet on the Western Front - which I re-read not so long ago, so I know that I was not over-praising that one - I rate very highly: Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves; and Her Privates We by Frederic Manning (I was too young to get the joke when I read it... I think I would probably still rate it, but who knows?).
I was unable to get through The Good Soldier Švejk - a very long book with just one repeated joke, and the style - at least in translation - was unimpressive. Oddly overpraised - IMO, anyway - and a disappointment compared to several other Czech authors.
It appears to have become fashionable to criticise Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War, but I liked it, along with Faulks' previous book The Girl at the Lion d'Or... he really lost the plot with the badly misjudged Charlotte Gray, though - IMO, of course.
The only Barbusse I have read was his pre-war novel Hell, though it didn't leave much of an impression. (It was name-checked in Colin Wilson's The Outsider)
You ask about Russian WW1 books - I haven't read it, but the early part of And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokov deals with the Cossack experience, and continues into the Civil War. It won the Stalin Prize in 1941, so it can't be bad! ;-) Seriously - I'm sure someone on here has read it and can make a sensible comment.
What about Faulks's later novels - any recommendations from among those? I have yet to try anything of his.Sholokov, I have not read. Like, I imagine, many readers, I've always felt a little suspicious of his chumminess with Stalin and wondered how acclaimed his famous work would have been without Stalin's support. Then again, I suppose if he had been in Stalin's bad books I would have wondered if his work was acclaimed in the West only for that reason.
I thought I recently heard that some famous writer I wouldn't have expected to like him, did - but can't for the life of me recall who it was now, if I didn't dream the whole thing.
Since reading Entangled Life by Sheldrake
Earlier this year I have realised how vital fungi are to our existence.. there’s a report today that attempts are being made to map them. There is so much more to be found out, how they absorb carbon and feed the trees as just one example.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...
I decided to read this book as I have fond memories of reading Emil and the Detectives many years ago.
The story is set in Weimar Germany circa 1930… the protagonist, Fabian, works in advertising. In common with many young people of the era, he was over-qualified for the work - and his employment was precarious. Millions of others were in the same boat, or unemployed; young women often prostituted themselves to ‘get on’, or just to survive. We get to see quite a lot of the seamy side of Berlin over the course of the story, and not surprisingly the book did not meet the approval of polite society - or of the Nazis, who burned copies when they came to power - while Kästner looked on.
In parallel with the work problems and sexual shenanigans, Fabian discusses the social situation with his colleagues and friends. He and his good friend Labude would like to remake the world - as would most young people with political interests, as what has gone before is rarely satisfactory. In their case, of course, the situation post-WW1 was especially desperate and depressing. In an afterword not included in the original publication, Kästner has this to say:
“I am a moralist.
He discerns but one ray of hope, and he names it. He sees that his contemporaries, like stubborn mules, are running backwards towards a yawning abyss in which there is enough room for all the nations of Europe. And so… he cries out: Watch out! grip the handrail on your left with your left hand!”
I think the ‘he’, here, refers both to Fabian and his creator, as it seems that Kästner uses Fabian as a mouthpiece. The warning is less explicit that I’d have liked - is the ‘abyss’ another world war? (Kästner hated military training, and was affected by the deaths of so many contemporaries during WW1, becoming a pacifist.) Is the ‘handrail on the left’ socialism? Probably, but I can not be certain.
As far as I can see, though, Fabian/Kästner is an idealist - and a disillusioned one - rather than a ‘moralist’ which is the term he prefers himself. Following a discussion with Labude, who proposes political solutions to improve matters, Fabian says this:
“ What is the most perfect system as long as people remain a lot of swine?” (Ch. V111).
Fabian seems to think that matters will not improve unless people themselves change for the better, and doubts that this is possible.
As for the style of writing, a clue can be found in the Introduction, which contains a self-description by Kästner, delivered in a speech to PEN in 1957:
“(I am) no belletrist but a schoolmaster! … The man is a moralist. He is a rationalist. He is a descendant of the German Enlightenment, the sworn enemy of all the false ‘profundity’ which never goes out of fashion in the land of poets and thinkers. He is wholly devoted to three inalienable imperatives: integrity of feeling, clarity of thought and simplicity in word and sentence.”
(Kästner refers to himself in the third person throughout.)
I must admit to having been disappointed by the writing in the opening chapters, which had a brutal and almost clumsy style. After a few chapters, the author progressed to longer sentences and more fluency for the most part, but I don’t think anyone would regard the novel as beautifully written. The plot, too, consists of a series of set pieces as Fabian wanders around town, meeting various men and - often - women, who for the most part seem to be entirely dependent on men for their financial wellbeing. The social/moral discussions seem fairly typical of those much loved by young students, though don’t really achieve any concrete results. I would say that the most satisfying aspect of the novel is to portray an unvarnished picture of Berlin in 1930, where poverty and a lack of secure employment left many desperate… fertile ground for political extremists. Despite his ‘moralism’, Fabian/Kästner does not present the reader with any solutions, or even much hope.
In spite of these reservations, I did enjoy the book overall and am glad to have read it.
Note on translation: The original translation was by Cyrus Brooks; this was amended by Rodney Livingstone because the original “toned down Kästner’s sexual explicitness”. At times, I felt the translation to be clumsy - some words/phrases didn’t sit well in English - but it was a decent job overall. Livingstone also wrote the Introduction, which I have only glanced at - see Kästner’s speech, quoted above. I may read the rest later!
Note on cover illustration: As I read the book, I felt that a cover based on either George Grosz or Max Beckmann would be appropriate… in fact, the cover is from a painting by an artist new to me - Christian Schad - and all three artists were associated with the "Neue Sachlichkeit” movement… the term can be variously translated, with no exact equivalent in English - ‘New Objectivity’ is often used. Schad’s painting shows a naked female model and the artist in a state of undress… appropriate to the content, but less grotesque than Grosz or Beckmann. Kästner also belonged to the Neue Sachlichkeit group - no surprise there!
I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume to a trilogy also comprising "War and Peace" and "Life and Fate." The disputes over its authorship seem to now be settled in Sholokov's favour. As to chumminess with Stalin (I don't know that it was really that) - yes, complicated, but are we to read no literature from Stalinist Russia (and its publication began [1925] only one year after Stalin came to power). I say read it!
God "My Phantoms" by Gwendoline Riley is good. She dissects people so mercilessly. Reading it makes me feel exposed. What an incisivie writer!
Greenfairy wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: "@AB – Then I think I’ll try “Waverley” next. “Rob Roy” was good enough to make me interested in others by Scott."I haven't read Rob Roy, but mention of the nam..."
Scott's Redguantlet, the only one of his novels I've read, has an excellent Scottish ghost story, Wandering Willie's tale, told on a moor cloaked in fog. The novel is loosely structured by modern standards, (I noticed the same thing in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister), but has some good theatrical scenes.
hushpuppy, I'm sorry I didn't reply to your Dune post (I logged off to eat Thai food last night!)I never thought about potentially racist tropes regarding Yueh, that's a very good point. Regarding the Baron... I have mixed feelings. Recently watching "Squid Game", a (gay, male) friend of mine expressed frustration at a trope I had never thought about, of decadent, sexually predatory gay men who are "foreign" and grotesque. Which the Baron definitely falls into, and I understand why the recent film seemed to shy away from that aspect of him and emphasised his general monstrosity without his sexual issues. However I was somewhat pleasantly surprised that the book was somewhat discreet regarding his horrible sexual desires - it's not a George RR Martin book that describes in detail horrible sexual crimes. It's always referred to in passing, or we see the Baron immediately after or before an incident like that.
Similarly, in the first book, I was surprised how Jessica and Leto's sexual attraction to each other was described tenderly. And how the orgy in the Sietch took place but instead of being surprised, there was a gentle moment of romantic connection between Chani and Paul (and then the scene faded to black - as it were - rather than being explicit). A lot of adult-oriented fantasy often seems grubby and prurient (or like the author was writing "with one hand", to put it crudely). That's also why I was surprised and frustrated by the gross scene of Alia and Paul in "Dune Messiah".
Oh yes, I missed Jessica too! And Leto and Kynes. At least I still had Stilgar.
I agree the unsympathetic portrayal of Paul is very intentional (poor Irulan!) but sometimes it feels like I'm reading about a robot. He's not... fun to spend time with by Dune Messiah. At least, not for me.
sorry i meant to say, the sietch sex orgy scene wasn't actually described*
Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent..."
I too thought it was magnificent, when I read it decades ago. It was only later that I learned I was not supposed to like it at all, for all sorts of reasons.
I too thought it was magnificent, when I read it decades ago. It was only later that I learned I was not supposed to like it at all, for all sorts of reasons.
"Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent..."
There was a sequel, which was much less impressive.
There was a sequel, which was much less impressive.
Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume to a trilogy also comprising "War and Peace" and "Life and Fate..."I've always been very suspicious of this novel but i feel if you liked it Veuf it will have same appeal to me and i think i need to read up on the author too
my primary focus on the communist era in last 4 years has been on the 1970s and 80s novels from the USSR and Eastern Bloc, rather than earlier ones. Yuri Trifonov's stories of 60s and 70s soviet life are superb
However i will be reading a 1930s communist era classic when i finish Wieland, that is Conquered City by Victor Serge(1931), set in the 1919-29 period which he personally lived through in St Petersburg. Although Serge was belgian, son of russian exiles, so its not a russian novel
A postscript to my comment on Erich Kästner... it seems that his wonderful children's book Emil and the Detectives was adapted and made into a film with a script by... Billy Wilder! It's not so long since I read and reviewed Jonathan Coe's Mr Wilder & Me. Not even six degrees of separation there!
My Arctic Journal: A Year among Ice-Fields and Eskimos is my third non-fiction read set in the landscapes of the arctic after Muir(Alaska) and Morris (Iceland)Like the other two books its interesting to follow the seasons up in the north, where summer is much more distinctive than in the Antartctic. Peary records the variety of flowers in the region of far Northern Greeland in August and the plentiful grass, though by early September the snows are setting in, Morris had snow in Iceland at various times in July and August even, while Muir found Alaska mild and pleasent at the same time.
Peary's hunting exploits are quite shocking to read though(likewise when i read Russel-Wallace about Indonesia, when he spent a few pages describing all the orang-utans he gleefully shot in the 19thc). Peary describes without emotion killing a mother reindeer and a mother walrus in a few passages. also killing the baby walrus......
Miri wrote: "hushpuppy, I'm sorry I didn't reply to your Dune post (I logged off to eat Thai food last night!)"No worries at all - you're giving me ideas!
However I was somewhat pleasantly surprised that the book was somewhat discreet regarding his horrible sexual desires - it's not a George RR Martin book that describes in detail horrible sexual crimes.
Funny that you mention GoT, some other people have made the comparisons on GR, esp. at the Dune series goes on. It seems that Children of Dune is certainly ramping up the ick factor that you describe so... vividly; another reason for us to stop at Dune Messiah perhaps.
Like you, I've liked a lot Herbert's use in Dune of almost cinematic ellipses, and his choice in Dune Messiah to focus on one remote PoV, while major events happen behind the scenes (view spoiler).
I did miss Leto and Liet/Kynes too (view spoiler)!
He's not... fun to spend time with by Dune Messiah. At least, not for me.
No, I don't think he had much fun spending time with himself either tbh. Poor Paul, it was truly a poisoned chalice this Water of Life... He could not even confide in Chani anymore, for fear of altering once more the path of lesser evil.
Hushpuppy wrote: "Miri wrote: "hushpuppy, I'm sorry I didn't reply to your Dune post (I logged off to eat Thai food last night!)"No worries at all - you're giving me ideas!
However I was somewhat pleasantly surp..."
while i watched GoT i was pretty sickened by the sadism and sexual violence and would love to think those two things will diminish over time with imitations of GoT.
As a realist, i was aware it depicted a world that possibly existed in crueller times but to come from a modern mind seemed slightly creepy. The message was quite strong about the world of monarchs, dynasties and plotting but we didnt need to see every creepy little sadist and his foibles on screen
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think the Great War has given us some amazing pieces of fiction or memoir...Indeed it did, unfortunately. Apart from the outstanding All Quiet on the Western Front - ..."
Sholokov's book disappointed me; its characterization was wooden. Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago is, in part, a World War I novel-- the sequence where Zhivago serves in a wartime hospital, and the later part where he's conscripted by the Reds. Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook deals with the home front during the First World War; Frances Farmborough's With the Armies of the Czar is a memoir dealing with a frontline hospital.
Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think the Great War has given us some amazing pieces of fiction or memoir...Indeed it did, unfortunately. Apart from the outstanding [book:All Quiet on the West..."
i have read the Bulgakov novel. It is suprising we didnt get a soviet WW1 novel in the 1920s or 30s but on the other hand it isnt, as any truthful account would have been too honest for the bloodsoaked communist bosses......the Victor Serge novel i will be reading next does stand out as an account of the 1917-1920 period, though he spent his last decade as an exile from the murderous Stalin regime and would probably have been killed if he stayed in the USSR
Robert wrote (172): Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook deals with the home front during the First World WarHm. I have read A Country Doctor's Notebook at least four times. I must have completely overlooked that it dealt in any way with the war. Could you possibly enlighten me?
Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think the Great War has given us some amazing pieces of fiction or memoir...Indeed it did, unfortunately. Apart from the outstanding [book:All Quiet on the West..."
thanks for the Farmborough tip...hadnt heard of that
As i reach the end of 2021 as a reading year, i have been suprised that i'm only on my 60th book, in 2020 i read 76 booksNow possibly the lockdowns would have caused me to read more but i checked that and i did no more reading in the March-May 2020 lockdown than the same period in the previous 3 years
While i have been slightly busier in 2021 since June at least, i havent changed my approach to covid and remain as careful, so am not doing more things like in normal times (like travel etc)...i'm also not reading any epic novels that could have slowed the reading down. Am baffled!
AB76 wrote: "i'm also not reading any epic novels that could have slowed the reading down. Am baffled!"I'm slightly ahead of last year. I suspect I've been reading more short books in 2021.
Georg wrote: "Robert wrote (172): Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook deals with the home front during the First World WarHm. I have read A Country Doctor's Notebook at least four times. I must have completel..."
The Russians were badly short of doctors, especially in rural areas. That's why the protagonist was sent to the middle-of-nowhere zemstvo (local government) hospital, that caused him to curse the day he filled out an application for medical school. (This was Bulgakov's real-life situation.) The last story in Bulgakov's book was set during the Russian civil war.
AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume to a trilogy also comprising "War and Peace" ..."AB, I don't know the precise nature of your suspicions re: "And Quiet Flows the Don," but I would urge you to reconsider them. The accusations of plagiarism were always very thin and seem comprehensively disproved now. Accusations of complicitly with Stalin's regime are much more muddied, of course. Yes, he accepted positions in the apparatus of power, but also seems to have sometimes tried to speak out, both in meetings with Stalin and in letters. Most importantly, as far as I'm concerned, AQFTD portrays Cossack life and culture with a great deal of sympathy. That gives it great value, I think.
Of course, as this thread shows, there are varying views as to the artistic qualities of the novel.
Either way, I think you will get much from it.
Veufveuve wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume to a trilogy also comprising "Wa..."Cossack life is an interest of mine, thanks Veuf for that summary, i shall add it to my "in the near future list"
SydneyH wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i'm also not reading any epic novels that could have slowed the reading down. Am baffled!"I'm slightly ahead of last year. I suspect I've been reading more short books in 2021."
one explanation is i have read more pages in total in 2021, which would mean slower reading. average length of a novel is 245 pages
Robert wrote(179): "Georg wrote: "Robert wrote (172): Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook deals with the home front during the First World WarHm. I have read A Country Doctor's Notebook at least four times. I must ..."
I see. "Home front" has always had a more specific meaning for me, hence my misunderstanding.
@Machenbach Yes I wasn't ready, read the last 50 or so pages when I was upset by some daft real life issue as well and it felt like Riley had cheerfully run me over with an emotional truck.
Hushpuppy wrote: "Funny that you mention GoT, some other people have made the comparisons on GR, esp. at the Dune series goes on. It seems that Children of Dune is certainly ramping up the ick factor that you describe so... vividly; another reason for us to stop at Dune Messiah perhaps."AB76 wrote: "while i watched GoT i was pretty sickened by the sadism and sexual violence and would love to think those two things will diminish over time with imitations of GoT."
Yes, I haven't read them, but watched only the first season. It was reasonably good, but I really took exception to the gratuitousness of the sexual and/or violent scenes. As you said, it was laced with sadism - and in a boring, very predictable way! - I just didn't have time for more of that.
AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume to a trilogy a..."Near Future Lists? How many book lists are you juggling?
Sorry, but this reminded me of someone I went to high school with. Later in life she had so many lists that she had to have a master list!
MK wrote(187): "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume t..."I do not even keep a list of the books I've read (or abandonded), let alone count them.
And my want-to-read list is a completely disorganized jumble of notes, though some have a scribbled star or even a ringed star signifying priority.
I seem to be the free-wheeling type....
I might be completely wrong, but I tend to think that the list-keeping readers tend to be men. Has a whiff of competition, goals set -and accomplished (good), or not (not good).
Anyway, each to their own.....
Georg wrote: "I might be completely wrong, but I tend to think that the list-keeping readers tend to be men."I've never read the book, but from what I recall reading about it, this may be the premise of High Fidelity.
Georg wrote: "I might be completely wrong, but I tend to think that the list-keeping readers tend to be men."They may well be in the majority, but I'm a man and like your good self, I don't keep a list of the books I've read, let alone the number of books. In (very) recent years, I have taken to putting possible TBR books on an Amazon wish-list, as reminders... but there are far too many and I'll never get around to reading all of them.
In fact, my decisions about which books to read next are almost always whimsical - I follow my nose or some momentary enthusiasm.
Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "I might be completely wrong, but I tend to think that the list-keeping readers tend to be men."I've never read the book, but from what I recall reading about it, this may be the pre..."
I'm almost tempted to read it on that account.
Although it might have actually been one of the 2 or 3 Hornby books I have read. They are so forgettable...
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I've read "And Quiet Flows the Don," and thought it magnificent, fully deserving its reputation. It would make a worthy second volume t..."apologies, there is no physical "near future list", i meant that it will be dangling in my brain along with other books on a revolving carousel reliant on my memory, which may fail
I am male and i do agree that men prefer lists, though over my 21 years of serious reading since roughly the age of 23, i have only used lists for the last three and have failed to stick to them every single time!
I DO record what have read in on a excel table, but thats after i finish a book and its so i can look back in a decade and see themes and trends in my reading etc
I keep lists, and I'm a lady! I'm so chronic re list keeping that I also keep a list in my diary of what pop culture/cultural things I enjoyed that day (games, music, books, films, tv). So many of my memories of fiction etc are tied to what I was doing in real life at the time, so it helps me remember.Re GoT, fwiw, I don't mind fantasy writers creating a world full of depravity, and it makes sense that those who abuse power generally could also abuse people sexually etc And GoT is... relatively fairhanded wrt which of the sexes gets tortured (poor old Theon). AND i think, certain fixations on their uh... feminine assets aside, GRRM is good at creatjng layered, interesting female characters. of all ages too! which is refreshing.
BUT (and you could probably sense a big but coming haha) he's just really awful at writing sex scenes. They're often gross and out of place and clearly trying to he titillating. No thank you!
also i didn't even notice dune messiah mostly getting rid of the omnipotent narrator who can read everyone's thoughts- shows how unobservant i am!!
Miri wrote: "I keep lists, and I'm a lady! I'm so chronic re list keeping that I also keep a list in my diary of what pop culture/cultural things I enjoyed that day (games, music, books, films, tv). So many of ..."wow, miri, impressive lists. if you keep them they would make fascinating reading when you are 85 in front of the fire, basically a lively commentary of your youth, better than a diary!
Georg wrote: "I'm almost tempted to read it on that account.Although it might have actually been one of the 2 or 3 Hornby books I have read. They are so forgettable..."
If only you had kept some kind of written record of what you've read.
Janeites will know that there is an unsolved mystery as to the nature of Jane Austen’s feeling for Tom Lefroy, the young Irishman whom she met when he was visiting relatives in Hampshire (the story that was the subject of the 2007 movie “Becoming Jane”).
Unsolved, perhaps, no longer. Last week the WSJ published an article by Ms Colleen Sheehan, who is not a journalist or a critic but the director of a graduate economic leadership program at Arizona State University. She analyzes the Charade addressed “To Miss -----" in Chapter IX of Emma, the one left by Mr Elton and written, he says, by a friend.
This Charade has ten lines – two quatrains and a couplet. Harriet can’t work it out. Emma quickly decides that the quatrains indicate “court” and “ship” and that it is in fact a courtship poem written by Mr Elton for Harriet. Jane Austen has Emma give the address mistakenly as “For Miss -----".
The concluding couplet reads:
Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,
May its approval beam in that soft eye!
Emma tells Harriet she should write only the two quatrains into her book of riddles. “Leave out the two last lines.” They are, says Emma, “the best of all” and for “private enjoyment”.
Ms Sheehan tells us to treat the couplet itself as a riddle. Looking acrostically at the first, middle and last letters of each line, we have, almost exactly, TOYMEE. Leave out the “two last” – letters on each line, not the lines themselves – and we now have TOLMEY. Next add the “For” inserted mistakenly by Emma, but deliberately by Jane, and we have TOLMEYFOR – which we can see immediately is an anagram for TOM LEFROY.
Did Jane love Tom? All we can say is that she was still thinking of him twenty years later – Emma came out in 1815 – and decided to bury his name in a riddle inside another riddle. By then Tom was long married. But perhaps it gave her some private enjoyment, and it may also have supplied the germ of an idea for Persuasion, and a happier ending.
Respect to Ms Sheehan for even finding the riddle, never mind solving it.
What of Mr Elton? He arrives shortly after the scene between Emma and Harriet, and he is disconcerted to find that his meaning has miscarried. We feel no pity for the aspiring vicar. His taste for motley puzzles is almost tomfoolery and should be more lofty.
Unsolved, perhaps, no longer. Last week the WSJ published an article by Ms Colleen Sheehan, who is not a journalist or a critic but the director of a graduate economic leadership program at Arizona State University. She analyzes the Charade addressed “To Miss -----" in Chapter IX of Emma, the one left by Mr Elton and written, he says, by a friend.
This Charade has ten lines – two quatrains and a couplet. Harriet can’t work it out. Emma quickly decides that the quatrains indicate “court” and “ship” and that it is in fact a courtship poem written by Mr Elton for Harriet. Jane Austen has Emma give the address mistakenly as “For Miss -----".
The concluding couplet reads:
Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,
May its approval beam in that soft eye!
Emma tells Harriet she should write only the two quatrains into her book of riddles. “Leave out the two last lines.” They are, says Emma, “the best of all” and for “private enjoyment”.
Ms Sheehan tells us to treat the couplet itself as a riddle. Looking acrostically at the first, middle and last letters of each line, we have, almost exactly, TOYMEE. Leave out the “two last” – letters on each line, not the lines themselves – and we now have TOLMEY. Next add the “For” inserted mistakenly by Emma, but deliberately by Jane, and we have TOLMEYFOR – which we can see immediately is an anagram for TOM LEFROY.
Did Jane love Tom? All we can say is that she was still thinking of him twenty years later – Emma came out in 1815 – and decided to bury his name in a riddle inside another riddle. By then Tom was long married. But perhaps it gave her some private enjoyment, and it may also have supplied the germ of an idea for Persuasion, and a happier ending.
Respect to Ms Sheehan for even finding the riddle, never mind solving it.
What of Mr Elton? He arrives shortly after the scene between Emma and Harriet, and he is disconcerted to find that his meaning has miscarried. We feel no pity for the aspiring vicar. His taste for motley puzzles is almost tomfoolery and should be more lofty.
Russell wrote: "His taste for motley puzzles is almost tomfoolery"Or did you mean TOMFOLERY, indeed, an anagram of Tom Lefroy ;-)?
Don't know if I buy this puzzle solving, but I do like the idea, thanks. Perhaps Tom solved it himself, who knows...? (And do we know if he ever got to read Persuasion?).
Hushpuppy wrote: "Russell wrote: "His taste for motley puzzles is almost tomfoolery"
Or did you mean TOMFOLERY, indeed, an anagram of Tom Lefroy..."
Tomfoolery is actually what I meant. It was as close as I could get, so I settled for putting in "almost".
I do agree somewhat about the puzzle solving, though there are several other examples in Emma, so Ms Sheehan is justified in looking for more wordplay. I stopped short of her conclusion that it was clear proof of love in 1795.
I'm not sure that anyone knows much more about Mr Lefroy.
Or did you mean TOMFOLERY, indeed, an anagram of Tom Lefroy..."
Tomfoolery is actually what I meant. It was as close as I could get, so I settled for putting in "almost".
I do agree somewhat about the puzzle solving, though there are several other examples in Emma, so Ms Sheehan is justified in looking for more wordplay. I stopped short of her conclusion that it was clear proof of love in 1795.
I'm not sure that anyone knows much more about Mr Lefroy.
Miri wrote: "(GRRM is) just really awful at writing sex scenes. They're often gross and out of place and clearly trying to he titillating. No thank you!I wonder if he has ever been nominated, or won, the Bad Sex in Fiction Award?
https://literaryreview.co.uk/bad-sex-...
(As for GRRM and any other fantasy fiction - I can not be bothered. It just isn't my sort of thing, at all.)
I tried the Game of Thrones series but couldn't get into it. Modern fantasy after Tolkien has for the most part passed me by: I read a few things in that vein as a youngster, after finishing all the Tolkien available at that time (mid-1970s), but within a year or two grew tired of it. I don't mean this to sound as if I grew out of it - I suspect this was not the case, since I don't seem to have ever grown out of my taste for other genres often thought of as similarly juvenile, e.g. comics, science-fiction, hard-boiled detective, etc.
So my impression is that post-Tolkien fantasy has turned out to be more of a literary dead-end than those other genres, though of course it's always possible that I gave up to soon or that I've just had bad luck or made bad decisions in the samples I've tried. I include Martin's Game of Thrones because it seems like such a deliberate, almost clockwork, box-ticking attempt at an anti-Tolkien fantasy, e.g. "Tolkien has no sex? OK, I'll have all kinds of sex!"
I have read a couple of George R.R. Martin things that I liked, though: an entertaining vampire novel called Fevre Dream from the mid-1980s (though I remember finding it started better than it finished); and especially a long short story or perhaps novella called "Sandkings" that appeared in the popular science magazine Omni back in the late 1970s or early '80s. Not sure where one would find it in book form, but I'm sure it must have been anthologised by now, because I thought it was pretty outstanding, at the time at least.
Berkley wrote: "I tried the Game of Thrones series but couldn't get into it. Modern fantasy after Tolkien has for the most part passed me by: I read a few things in that vein as a youngster, after finishing all th..."I'm in the same boat, having tried GoT and never having gotten more than a few dozen pages into the first volume without ever following it up. I've only ever seen a single episode of the television series (which was pretty decent). I tend to be the guy that sees all the salmon swimming in the same zeitgeist-wise direction, and choose to hang back because bears be waiting.
In my case, I don't know that I've grown out of it, but rather have been grown down into exhaustion with the genre. I got up to book 10 of The Wheel of Time series before saying "To hell with this.." and giving up. Since then, I'm really skittish about SF/Fantasy series.
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There’s some good glass in the Fitzwilliam. That’s my stand out memory.
Yes to your question. Most of her work is sold in that gallery.