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What Are We Reading? 28 February 2022
Andy wrote: "Yoshi wrote: " Yoshi.I also really enjoyed Ramuz's book.
Did you read it in English? I did, and the title was Terror on the Mountain. "
Oh yes, that's my bad. Sorry, I've been a bit careless there. I read the German translation, and afterwards searched for the right title to refer to in English. Based on my quick search, there is no other translation but the one you're referring to, "Terror on the Mountain". However, there will be a new translation published this year, under the title "Great Fear on the Mountain". In any case, the latter is the more literal translation of the original (Grande peur), so I think that is why I stuck with it in my post. Not that anything is wrong with the translation of peur as Terror,. I think it evokes quite well what the novel is about.
Nota bene: The German translation choses "Angst" over "Furcht" in its translation for fear, which is just as well as Furcht/fear usually needs a concrete object to be afraid of, while Angst, not unlike Terror, refers to a more generalised anxiety.
Especially with regards to Ramuz, and the mountainous terrain his novel takes place in, I am reminded of Kant's notion of the sublime, which is experienced when the fear of an object is replaced by the realisation of being confronted with a superior power. Kant's example is that of witnessing an avalanche from a point of safety. Which is almost exactly what one bears witness to/ experiences as a reader of this novel... Sorry for going off on a tangent.
Yoshi wrote: "Andy wrote: "Yoshi wrote: " Yoshi.I also really enjoyed Ramuz's book.
Did you read it in English? I did, and the title was Terror on the Mountain. "
Oh yes, that's my bad. Sorry, I've been a bit ..."
Mountains are a continous theme with Ramuz, Yoshi. I love the tales of mountainsides, ravines, the peaks and the snow, with Lake Geneva as a distant, vine dotted paradise far below.
I'm so glad Ramuz is being enjoyed by you, Andy and me, the word is being spread too..for a lowland Ramuz novel read "The Young Man from Savoy"
Charles Ferdinand Ramuz
My other most recent read has been a book I’d looked forward to tracking down for a long, long time Theodor Fontane’s
. I remember vividly my crazy English teacher with her fishing vests and tangled hear and birkenstocks recommending it to me fervently. I don’t remember what I had been reading that sparked her advice, La Dame aux Camelias maybe.I happened across a copy recently (translated into Italian by E. Gianni) and I immediately remembered my teachers recommendation, although I’ll be damned if I can recall her name.
It serves as a good counterpoint to Jane Austen’s Emma, in that it shows a young lark who rushes into an arranged marriage with the much older man who had originally courted her mother. Leaving aside the predilection for cousin husbandry and tacit acceptance of pedophilia amongst the privileged classes, Effi is a perfectly believable 17 year old girl who has know idea whatsoever lies outside of her estate grounds. She goes from playing hide and seek with the minister’s daughters to honeymooning with a perfect stranger in Venice in a matter of weeks. I am the age of Innstetten and I can’t imagine what in the name of fuck he’d want to do with marrying a 17 year old. Better whiskey-drowned bachelorhood. And so, while it’s no surprise that it ends tragically, it is surprising just how well the marriage works over the course of a number of years.
Effi has moments of teenage impetuousness, homesickness and petulant selfishness that have wide ripples through the course of her marriage. Likewise, Innstetten’s wounded vanity at not being able to finagle slash buy a wife until he was well into his forties has implications as those ripples bounce off his rocky, impenetrable shore.
It has a similar tone to Madame Bovary, although Effi’s struggle is less desperate and the consequences less polemical. As Innstetten goes from being a sort of chancellor in a Prussian village to a confidant of the emperor, it’s an interesting look at a pre-war Germany. Before anti-semitism became the talking point (although there are a few glimpses of it), and before nationalism started to roar.
I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I’d say that my teacher had gotten my reading tastes figured out all those years ago.
Now, I’m reading Jesmyn Ward’s
Paul wrote: "My other most recent read has been a book I’d looked forward to tracking down for a long, long time Theodor Fontane’s . I remember vividly my crazy English teacher w..."i think this is maybe the best portrait of Wilhelmine Germany written, Fontane covered aspects of the era in a lot of his novels of the 1880s and 1890s but in this one you can see the military society of 30 years creation becoming more hardened and inflexible, only a decade or so before the slaughter of WW1.
As you say Paul the Pan-Germanism that was starting to brew is not part of the novel but was already popular in Southern Germany and Austria.
The cold days of February have been left behind, but a few stormy days are still ahead. My mind has somehow come to rest again on the contemplation of borders. Not surprising in a time of newly felt, and possibly disturbing transitions from old-world orders. I have been reading a history of Scapa flow, ‘The Grand Scuttle’ by Dutch author and journalist, Dan Van Der Vat, about the scuppering of the German fleet during the settling of the WW-I armistice, through the much-extended period of settling the finer details of the ‘Treaty of Versailles’, signed eventually on the 28th June, 1919. The sticking points were many but one of the most crucial and interesting parts seems to have occurred in the process of preparing the German fleet for the actual transfer to Scapa flow. Mutiny broke out, instigated by the ordinary German sailors, whilst they were still impounded on a coastal inlet at Wilhelmshaven, near Bremen, on the north west German coast. The fleet were awaiting orders as to where they would be required to take the fleet to, to turn themselves, and their boats over to the victors.The sailors had been stirred up by The German Revolution or ‘November Revolution’, which began within days of the capitulation of Germany to the Allies, on November 11th, 1918, The civil conflict in the German Empire, at the end of the WW-I, resulted in the replacement of the German federal constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliamentary republic that later became known as the Weimar Republic. For the first time working-class people in Germany were working together to overthrow ancient rule, by monarchist aristocracies. In many parts of Germany, they were busy building new political structures to enable the ordinary German worker to be involved in deciding political policy on a national scale.
Alas for many of them, including the sailors on the impounded German fleet, it seems that the officer class of the vanquished German naval fleets, and the officer class of the victors (in terms of the internment of the German naval fleet, the British were in charge) seemed to have more in common, and more trust with each other, than with the embryonic ‘Bolshevik’ German working classes, of a new in-coming era. Various eruptions of ‘mutiny’ had broken out, against the old ‘world’ order, across large parts of Germany during the long-drawn-out negotiations, over the final details of the ‘Versailles Treaty’.
In Wilhelmshaven the ordinary crews of the various battle ships, those who had been patronised and slighted, by both the victors and their own German officer class, had had enough, they took to desertion, or drink and general indiscipline. In Dan Van Der Vat’s description there was one phrase that really caught my attention “much of the fleet succumbed to an irrational passion for dancing”... Well I’m going to leave that particular history right there, but already I am dreaming of a possible novel eruption at the boundaries of Russia and Ukraine, where, instead of killing each other, and destroying whatever happens to get in the way of either sides’ ambitions, a sudden outbreak of joyful dancing occurs.
A sort of mutiny of the human spirit if you like, and then perhaps a truly revolutionary thing might happen. What a sight that would be!... that everyone, from whatever side could pitch in, and manage to have a good time, and enjoy themselves... together... no matter what class or nationality they think they belong to. But then, hasn’t Russia been somewhere like that before, perhaps?
Here is 'The Great Gates of Kiev', from Pictures at an Exhibition' by Modest Mussorsky, if anyone is interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw7OM...
From more ancient times in Ukraine, I guess from the height of Russian romantic expressionism... Those were the days...
I am reading so slowly at the moment that any reviews will be few and far between. 'Fathers and Sons' is also going very slowly. Turgenev is a good writer, but the whole feel is very patriarchal. Is it OK to seduce the orphaned daughter of your ex, miraculously-dedicated house-keeper/cleaner? The daughter languishes prettily against the house furniture, with her cute son, but has not much to say... so far...
I hope some women with actual opinions appear somewhere, but then he didn't write a book called 'Mothers and Daughters'. We women were obviously both decorative and useful in those days.. but.. I still feel a bit peevish about a lack of feminist awareness though. It is wrong to judge an ancient book by current 'moral' standards, but its hard to dismiss the dismissiveness...
My March blog is about borders, and boundaries, witches, intransigence and 'roads less travelled', and the odd Russian bear or two. https://jediperson.wordpress.com/.../... in case anyone might be interested. I find it quite wierd that it is easier to write than to read these days. I now have officially got the go-ahead for the cataract operation, the tests were done in days. The wait for the operation, I have been told, will be up to a year... sláinte
AB76 wrote: "Andy wrote: "Yoshi wrote: "Thanks for the lovely introduction, LL. I haven't read any of the longlisted titles, yet. I have ordered Percival Everett's The Trees. The premise sounds absolutely fasci..."Thanks AB, added...
Yoshi wrote: "Andy wrote: "Yoshi wrote: " Yoshi.I also really enjoyed Ramuz's book.
Did you read it in English? I did, and the title was Terror on the Mountain. "
Oh yes, that's my bad. Sorry, I've been a bit ..."
Completely understandable.
And I enjoy tangents..
The Lake of the Dead by André Bjerke translated by James D. Jenkins. In the darkest and deepest part of the Norwegian woods is Dead Man's Cabin, the location of tragedy a century earlier when a local logger, Tøre Gruvik, apparently became insane, and beheaded his sister and her lover, and threw their corpses in the nearby lake before drowning himself.
An Oslo author has ignored superstition, and has disappeared from the cabin while there to finish his book. A body is found, and suicide is suspected. His friends travel to the cabin determined to find out what has happened.
Bjerke's novel, first published in 1942, has recently earned a reprint from Valancourt, and was voted the all-time best Norwegian crime thriller. It also has an atmospheric 1958 film adaptation is regarded as one of Norway's best films.
Even though parts of the story may sound familiar, not least to Scooby-Doo fans, this is a very entertaining piece of horror fiction.
I intend to seek this very cabin out myself when I head up into the deep Norwegian forests later this year..
In Rusbridgers dry and quit
e dull book about his time as editior fo the G, he makes a lot of noise about the "wonderful"comments sectionThe G are heavily limiting their comments sections on Ukraine and Abramovich, which is frustrating as they have articles by biased chelsea fans about how great the Russian crook is
I sometimes feel that the Guardian needs to be more enthusiastic about comment and censor it more logically if needed,
AB76 wrote: "I sometimes feel that the Guardian needs to be more enthusiastic about comment and censor it more logically if needed,"The Guardian's attitude to comment and censorship follows a very predictable pattern - follow the party line and be as rude as you like, don't and you get modded however polite.
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I sometimes feel that the Guardian needs to be more enthusiastic about comment and censor it more logically if needed,"The Guardian's attitude to comment and censorship follows a ver..."
i agree, its a failure of a policy and would be very much at home in 1980s eastern europe. Its not really a comments section, its a "comment in the way we suggest you do and we may let your comment remain on our website"
Walks with Walser by Carl Seelig(1957) is one of the most interesting and tragic non-fiction i have read for a while.Seelig was a publisher who visited the great Swiss author Robert Walser in the Eastern Swiss asylum he was living in and took him out for walks in the countryside.
Walser rarely wears anything but a suit and brolly in all weather as the two men walk for hours down to the shores of Lake Constance or into the foothills over a 12 year period. Eating copious amounts of cake and drinking much beer as Walser talks about his life, his works and the state of modern Switzerland and Germany.
Walser cuts a tragic and difficult figure in anecdotes we hear from his doctors via Seelig, he refuses to even discuss the death of his brother Karl and when his beloved sister Lisa lies dying in hospital, he will not go and see her but admits he thinks a lot of her.
Walser remarks on one walk that it was the Nazi's that ruined his writing, as the newspapers he wrote for and the editors he corresponded with were now defunct or dead.
Seelig ended one section i read last night with a haunting line, as he left the 65yo after a walk:
"when we say good bye. i'm suddenly startled by his tragic face. that long handclasp"
AB76 wrote: " Walks with Walser by Carl Seelig(1957) is one of the most interesting and tragic non-fiction i have read for a while.Seelig was a publisher who visited the great Swiss author Robert Walser in th..."
Is there any comment so far on why his handwriting shrunk to such a tiny size, or was that later on towards the end of his life?
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Walks with Walser by Carl Seelig(1957) is one of the most interesting and tragic non-fiction i have read for a while.Seelig was a publisher who visited the great Swiss author Robert..."
not yet Tam but i am also interested in the reasons for that and i think it was in his later years, though he is already in his late 50s when the walks began
it was Seeling who got the microscripts published in the first place and its is heartening to think that Walser had a companion to visit him and to talk with,, in his long years as a mental patient.
if the reason emerges in this book for the tiny handwriting , i will inform you on here!
AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Walks with Walser by Carl Seelig(1957) is one of the most interesting and tragic non-fiction i have read for a while.Seelig was a publisher who visited the great Swiss a..."
thanks. I would very much like to know, and how he came to influence so many other authors...
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Walks with Walser by Carl Seelig(1957) is one of the most interesting and tragic non-fiction i have read for a while.Seelig was a publisher who visited the ..."
he seems rather put out, when looking back at his younger days, about Herman Hesse, his German contemporary who was getting all the acclaim that maybe Walser felt he deserved too. Its hard to judge who is the better author of the two in that period, for me, as Hesse's "Demian" remains one of my favourite novels
its only my opinion but on his influence on other writers i would suggest he was writing, as young man, in a golden time for german writing, journals and newspapers, from the early 1900s to the 1920s. not only would he have the large austrian and imperial german reading public but german speakers in other parts of europe and switzerland, including the nordic countries.
Kafka was a fan and of course as german speaker and writer, Kafka was part of this significant millieu of writers that possibly was never as unified in the 1930s and 40s, as their newspapers, journals and politics became threatened. (Kafka of course died long before the Nazi's came to power)
AB76 wrote: " Walks with Walser by Carl Seelig(1957) is one of the most interesting and tragic non-fiction i have read for a while.Seelig was a publisher who visited the great Swiss author Robert Walser in th...
Walser cuts a tragic and difficult figure in anecdotes we hear from his doctors via Seelig, he refuses to even discuss the death of his brother Karl and when his beloved sister Lisa lies dying in hospital, he will not go and see her but admits he thinks a lot of her."
Lisa is a memorable character in The Tanners, from what I remember. Whenever I see a picture of her I think she should have been an actress or movie star but I suppose she was born too early for that.
Mod
Of course, I had to get myself something, too. There was a discussion on WWR about how one chooses books and if one is swayed by the cover - I was totally swayed by the covers of the 2 slim volumes I picked out. I've posted a photo.
Deux femmes et un jardin
Dans la lumière des saisons
I have finished Yugoslavia My Fatherland a superb novel, published in 2015, a sharp, sometimes witty but also downbeat realistic novel of the impact of the end of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.Vojnovic is a brilliant writer, translated superbly, the style is like the best of modern novels, linking historical fact with the writers craft and suffused with nostalgia for summers in Pula with friends and family, in those days before the nation started to decay and then was dismembered.
The hunt for his father, a suspected war criminal, is well told, elements of mystery, longing, guilt and despair. No spoilers here...nostalgia is always bittersweet
Gpfr wrote: "This afternoon I went to our local bookshop with my grandsons. The 13-year-old chose an Agatha Christie (he's steadily reading his way through them as did his father at the same age)."And why not? I did much the same - probably, Christie was preceded by Just William and Biggles, and followed by James Bond and then Graham Greene... I wonder what the developmental path is for today's young readers? Harry Potter?
(I meant to ask - of your book covers, the first is nice but the link for the second shows a totally plain cover... is that right?)
With the next installment of Maisie Dobbs hitting the shelves in the next couple of weeks in the States, I want to share a clip from Jacqueline Winspear's latest newsletter - In the past three newsletters, I’ve told you more about the background to A Sunlit Weapon, so now you know a little more about the women of Britain’s Air Transport Auxiliary during WW2, plus the 1942 visit to Britain by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the experiences of African American soldiers deployed to Britain—a country with no segregation based upon the color of your skin.
I know some of you who have read about the book—and those of you who receive early review copies—might have wondered why I gave the Black American soldier a last name that originates in the county of Kent, England. There’s a personal story attached to my decision.
In the early 1990’s I worked for a San Francisco Bay Area telecommunications company as a sales executive—I was selling voice telecommunications services. My territory included San Francisco, and one day I had an important appointment with a senior executive in the human resources department of a very large company based in the city. His last name was Crittenden—just like Matthias Crittenden, the Black soldier in A SUNLIT WEAPON.
We had a good meeting—Mr. Crittenden was very interested with our services and I was asked to send a full proposal based upon the company’s requirements. However, before I left, I had to ask him a question.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said. “But I wondered—do you know where your last name comes from?”
The young man, an African American about twenty-eight years of age, smiled and leaned back in his chair as if ready for conversation. Bear in mind that this was before you could just hit Google and delve into instant research.
“You know, I don’t, but my dad has been trying to find out,” he replied. “We know we were descended from slaves in the south.” Aware of my accent, he added, “Seems you might have some idea about my name.”
I explained that it originated in the county of Kent, specifically in the area I hail from. I told him more about the small towns and villages with names ending in “den” that were identified in the Domesday Book, compiled after the Norman invasion in 1066, and the many surnames ending in “den” indicating that a person’s ancestors likely came from the region.
Mr. Crittenden was very interested, so I went further.
“Many of the original settlers in America came from the counties of Kent and Sussex, so my guess is that your ancestors might have been under the thumb of a Crittenden from Kent—and your family were given his name.”
The man’s smile widened and I was relieved, as I was worried my inquiry might be offensive—I was just really curious and the origin of names has always interested me.
“I can’t wait to tell my dad about this—he’s going to be so excited,” said the young man. “I know he’ll be checking out a map of England.”
We talked some more, and shook hands as I took my leave. I looked through the window into his office as I left, and heard him pick up the ‘phone and say, “Hey, Dad—”
With the memory of that experience, I knew I had to give my African American soldier the same name as the young San Francisco executive.
Mod
No, it isn't - I put a pic in Photos.
Gpfr wrote: "This afternoon I went to our local bookshop with my grandsons. The 13-year-old chose an Agatha Christie (he's steadily reading his way through them as did his father at the same age) and the 11-yea..."Wonderful way to spend the afternoon.
Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "of your book covers, the first is nice but the link for the second shows a totally plain cover... is that right?..."No, it isn't - I put a pic in Photos."
Aha! Thanks.
MK wrote: "With the next installment of Maisie Dobbs hitting the shelves in the next couple of weeks in the States, I want to share a clip from Jacqueline Winspear's latest newsletter."Lovely story - thanks for sharing.
Two from me.. The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet translated from the French by Richard Howard.
Eight murders have been committed, each day for eight days, in an unnamed Flemish town. When a ninth, a retired profesor, is murdered, Wallas, a police detective, is called in to investigate. The novel follows him around for twenty four hours as he searches for the murderer. The reader know though, that the professor is not actually die in the attack, it was a botched assassination attempt, grazing his arm only.
There's more than a whiff of Simenon's romans-durs about opening exchanges in which a shadowy organisation murders, or attempts to murder, prominent members of society. But the comparisons with Simenon are short-lived. Simenon is sharp, short and to the point, his books rarely exceeding 150 pages, whereas Robbe-Grillet is not; he writes about the layout of the town for several pages without any apparent reason. Indeed the problem here, after the scene is set, is tedium, after all we are told the solution to the mystery in the lively opening.
The feeling comes across though, that these criticisms I have, are included intentionally by Robbe-Grillet, in a type of experimentation with the genre. He writes lyrically, but about places and objects that seem totally irrelevant to the story. Though it is a deviation for the standard crime novel, the result doesn't appeal as much as it should.
and, a book I have had on the go for the last week as bedtime reading, The Museum of Whales You Will Never See: And Other Excursions to Iceland's Most Unusual Museums by A. Kendra Greene
This is an enchanting theme for a book, an arbitary meandering around Iceland taking in seven galleries and seven cabinets chosen from the staggering number of 265 museums in the country, considering a population of just over 300,000.
From the Icelandic Phallological Museum to the Museum of Witching and Sorcery, this is a delightfully unorthodox travel book.
A penis museum does have a appeal for some of the country's tourists, perhaps seeking some shelter from the weather. Its founder was given a pickled penis as a joke, and from the interest taken in it, realised there could be a business opportunity, and has since assembled a throng of distinctive members, each proudly mounted.
The Museum of Witching and Sorcery shows off the country's rich stack of folkore.
As in other good travel writing, the museums here are not the real point, but they suffice as a vehicle for Greene to describe affectionately the eccentric cast of curators dedicated to their curious outposts.
Rather than the usual tourist agenda, Greene sketches remote regions of the country with their appealingly offbeat dreamers and their various labours of love.
Very sad to hear of the death of Shane Warne, Austalian cricketer, at only 52, i loved his autobiogs and his commentary on the game and of course his wonderful spin bowling. RIP ShaneBack to the book world and Maugham's short stories are just superb!
Oh and for Ramuz fans, i have just ordered "jean Luc Persecuted" from 1909
I tried to read Elizabeth George’s book Something to Hide and failed. Have read some of these before and can hardly believe that it is the same author writing the dialogue is so clunky. In addition while very anti FGM and have read about it I really didn’t want it the main part of a comfort read book. Abandoned that and started Malice
which is a relief
Andy - I have to say, tedium was always a problem I had with Robbe-Grillet. The Iceland Phallological Museum, on the other hand, sounds hugely entertaining.
AB - Shane Warne, agreed, a very sad loss at an appallingly young age. What a great cricketer and a great character.
AB - Shane Warne, agreed, a very sad loss at an appallingly young age. What a great cricketer and a great character.
Andy wrote: "Two from me.. The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet translated from the French by Richard Howard.
Eight murders have been committed, each ..."
Robbe-Grillet is very much an acquired taste Andy, i recommend his films, they are strange but very interesting
Mod
I read this last year. It is the first book with Kyoichiro Kaga, the 2nd being Newcomer which I wrote about the other day.
I've read about 4 other books by Higashino.
AB76 wrote: "Very sad to hear of the death of Shane Warne, Austalian cricketer, at only 52"I'm in shock. I can't quantify the amount of time I've spent watching him bowling or studying his skills. He's one of the greatest of all time. RIP Warnie.
Andy wrote: " The feeling comes across though, that these criticisms I have, are included intentionally by Robbe-Grillet, in a type of experimentation with the genre. He writes lyrically, but about places and objects that seem totally irrelevant to the story. Though it is a deviation for the standard crime novel, the result doesn't appeal as much as it should..."WRT Robbe-Grillet:
Alain Robbe-Grillet, an influential theorist as well as writer of the Nouveau Roman, published a series of essays on the nature and future of the novel which were later collected in Pour un Nouveau Roman. Rejecting many of the established features of the novel to date, Robbe-Grillet regarded many earlier novelists as old-fashioned in their focus on plot, action, narrative, ideas, and character. Instead, he put forward a theory of the novel as focused on objects: the ideal nouveau roman would be an individual version and vision of things, subordinating plot and character to the details of the world rather than enlisting the world in their service.
This theory gave rise to my favourite literary joke (of recent years, anyway)... I have probably re-told it before, but never mind! In Laurent Binet's book
, a psychopathic killer is pursuing our hero through the aisles of a university library:"... he dived into an aisle marked 'le Nouvel Roman' - but it turned out to be a dead end!"
AB76 wrote: "Very sad to hear of the death of Shane Warne, Austalian cricketer, at only 52, i loved his autobiogs and his commentary on the game and of course his wonderful spin bowling. RIP ShaneBack to the ..."
Shocked AB.
Blofeld spoke well on Radio 4 about him, saying he was very much ‘life in the fast lane’.
In further Ramuz news, I’ve just started The Reign of the Evil One I discovered on the Internet Archive. The translation isn’t great, but doesn’t spoil the experience…
Russell wrote: "Andy - I have to say, tedium was always a problem I had with Robbe-Grillet. The Iceland Phallological Museum, on the other hand, sounds hugely entertaining.AB - Shane Warne, agreed, a very sad lo..."
You raised a smile on a sad evening Russell…
AB76 wrote: "Andy wrote: "Two from me.. The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet translated from the French by Richard Howard.
Eight murders have been com..."
Anything in particular?
CCCubbon wrote: "I tried to read Elizabeth George’s book Something to Hide and failed. Have read some of these before and can hardly believe that it is the same author writing the dialogue is so clunky. In addition..."Have you read any Higashino before? What did you think?
Andy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Very sad to hear of the death of Shane Warne, Austalian cricketer, at only 52, i loved his autobiogs and his commentary on the game and of course his wonderful spin bowling. RIP Shane..."
i will be reading a Ramuz after i finish Maugham....
Andy, try these three Robbe-Grillet films:Trans Europ Express
The Man Who Lies
Eden And After
They are all original and quite unusual, mixing same brilliant photography/cinematography with odd plots and scripts. I'm not saying you will love them but i think they will entertain you and keep you guessing
I have just added this to my BookDepository wishlist - Forbidden Wife: The Life and Trials of Lady Augusta Murray
.
Not saying I'm going to, but if I were to read a Rachel Cusk novel, which Rachel Cusk novel should I read?
scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: " The feeling comes across though, that these criticisms I have, are included intentionally by Robbe-Grillet, in a type of experimentation with the genre. He writes lyrically, but about..."scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: " The feeling comes across though, that these criticisms I have, are included intentionally by Robbe-Grillet, in a type of experimentation with the genre. He writes lyrically, but about..."
Wasn't there a joke that if a graduate was asked what the most important development in recent French literature was and he answered 'le Nouvel Roman,' the professor would know he was an ass, but if he answered 'le Roman noir' he was reading some interesting stories.
Robert wrote: "Wasn't there a joke that if a graduate was asked what the most important development in recent French literature was and he answered 'le Nouvel Roman,' the professor would know he was an ass, but if he answered 'le Roman noir' he was reading some interesting stories."No idea if there is such a joke, but I - and no doubt Binet - would concur if there is one.
(If anyone is interested in Binet, I recommend HHhH as an easier way in than The Seventh Function of Language... it tells of the assassination attempt on Heydrich in Prague, but the author also explains his reasoning as he goes along, as well as including some autobiographical details. I liked it a lot.)
AB76 wrote: "Andy, try these three Robbe-Grillet films:Trans Europ Express
The Man Who Lies
Eden And After
They are all original and quite unusual, mixing same brilliant photography/cinematography with odd p..."
Cheers AB.
Walter Mosley - Blood GroveThis is the latest in Mosley's Easy Rawlins series... Mosley writes so well that I thoroughly enjoyed this story, even though there was considerably less action than usual. I think it's fair to say that Easy has now 'arrived' (in American terms) and has a comfortable lifestyle - his latest abode is given a lengthy description which, if not quite of '5 pages of living room carpet' dimensions, felt more detailed than it needed to be. The setting for this new home seemed fantastical, but it is California, so I can't rule out the possibility that such places - which can only be reached via a funicular railway - do exist.
Anyway... this is a story of detection, rather than a thriller... a young man turns up with an improbable story: Easy decides to investigate regardless, probably because he sympathises with the young vet and his apparent PTSD... as time moves on, the tale becomes more and more convoluted, more and more bodies turn up, Easy is rousted several times by the so-called 'forces of law and order' - in other words, a bunch of racists. He finally prevails with help from his friends, and against the odds.
To anyone unfamiliar with the series, I'd say - start with the earlier books - the writing style is there already and you'll find more action. Long-term fans like myself won't feel too disappointed, except that more real-time action would have been appreciated. I rather sympathised with Easy's deadly friend, Mouse, who when asked for his advice replies:
"Time to stop thinkin', and start killin'."
Yes, indeed!
Ramuz is getting a few mentions this week in our circle, so I thought I'd jump on board as well... The Reign of the Evil One by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz
On a quiet summer evening in a Swiss mountain village, a stranger arrives and offers his services as a shoemaker. He is generous and helpful and soon deceives pretty much everyone in the community.
In allegorical style Ramuz creates an apocalyptic nightmare way ahead of its time (it was originally published in 1917).
Notable is the behaviour of the inhabitants of the village, seemingly helpless, and prepared to accept their fate. They struggle to comprehend what has happened to them in what essentially is a parody of rural naturalism.
There is an interesting overlap between this, and Joan Samson's The Auctioneer. In Samson's novel, published in 1975, Perly Dunsmore is the evil stranger who arrives at a rural backwater and enchants the community. Mayhem, destruction and death follow, as with Ramuz. I suspect the great Swiss writer was an influence on Samson.
Contrary to what Goodreads says, this was first published in 1917, rather than 1946. It has had two translations into English, in 2008 by Wildside Press, and in 2014, by James Whitall. I read the earlier version, on Internet Archive, and the translation isn't great, but did not deter from my enjoyment of the book.
Andy wrote: "Ramuz is getting a few mentions this week in our circle, so I thought I'd jump on board as well... The Reign of the Evil One by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz
On a quiet..."
Great to see Ramuz getting mentioned on here, i find his style very interesting and quite different to the Swiss German writers. I wouldnt say he is influenced by french literature either and his novels are usually set in the cantons of Vaud or Valais in the West of Switzerland where French speaking Switzerland meets pockets of highland German speakers. It is historically a french speaking Protestant area but Ramuz did not identify much with the faith of his youth.
Other Swiss writers for you Andy:
Freidrich Glauser
Robert Walser
Jacques Chessex
Durrenmatt(
Gottfried Keller
Jeremias Gotthelf
Max Frisch
Fleur Jaggy
@franhunny - I just posted a reply in WWR to your question about Primo Levi. Apologies - after a couple of days I tend not to go back and see if there are any comments I should be responding to.
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This is the reason some people give for buying 'Finnegan's Wake'.
I suspect they were disappointed! ;-)