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What are we reading? 29th March 2022
Mod
St Kilda, ..."
Thank you CC for writing about Shadowlands - it seems I was right when I said it looked interesting!
In 2020 I read the beautiful book of essays by Kathleen Jamie, Sightlines. I think I wrote about it on TLS. One of the essays is about St. Kilda.She made a first unsuccessful attempt to go there - the weather was too bad. It was a great disappointment for a German couple on the boat with her, the husband was very ill and longed to visit St Kilda. On a 2nd trip she was able to have a few hours ashore, but the weather forecast meant that they had to leave that day.
Then an archaeologist friend invited her to go along with a group who were beginning a big project, to "plot the entire 'cultural landscape' of the archipelago", bringing up to date the work of a pioneering archaeologist, Mary Harman, in the late 1970s.
"She had been the first to appreciate that, when they left, the St Kildan people had left behind a complete expression in stone of a unique way of life."In the 19th century a wealthy Englishman visited the island and was "appalled at the islanders' traditional blackhouses." By 1860, new cottages were built, but in fact they were not an improvement. They were damp and required upkeep and repairs needing materials which the islanders had no way to get. This was maybe one of the reasons why life there became untenable.
@ABPeople had been living on St Kilda for at least 2,000 years. There is archaeological evidence going back to the Neolithic period.
I wonder how they got there!
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I raced through the much shorter Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (semi-finalist in Tournament of Books recently; also on Obama's Summer reads list). Intimacies is a tense and unsettling and compelling read about language and communication and - ur - intimacy. It was pretty good, but I took exception with some strange comma placements and unpunctuated dialog that sometimes mixed two first-person narrators in the same paragraph. These issues kept pulling me out of the book.
Up next: Letters to Camondo by Edmund de Waal.
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Lljones wrote: "It's official: I won't be finishing Crossroads. I've removed it from the breakfast table and placed it on the shelves somewhere, with just 70 or so pages to go. Maybe someone else w..."Wow. That's a long haul to abandon the voyage. I think Franzen is a little bit like the lonely guy at the party who sits around talking when all of the other guests have stumbled home. As much as i did like the two books of his that I've read, I did have the sense that he was trying my patience and prodding my limits
CCCubbon wrote: "@ABPeople had been living on St Kilda for at least 2,000 years. There is archaeological evidence going back to the Neolithic period.
I wonder how they got there!"
i excitedly found a scottish census of 1755 online about an hour ago but sadly St Kilda is included as part of the Parish of Harris so not really that informative. as its a bigger area and just headline figures.
i would suggest a possible viking-gaelic link to the larger settler group maybe, though they are remote islands, i noticed that on my trip in 1999, it was a long slog out to the islands, coming round from the Orkneys...only Rockall is probably more remote off west scotland
In 1549, Donald Munro wrote:
The inhabitants thereof ar simple poor people, scarce learnit in aney religion, but M’Cloyd of Herray, his stewart, or he quhom he deputs in sic office, sailes anes in the zear ther at midsummer, with some chaplaine to baptise bairnes ther
the habit of using roping pegs to abseil the cliffs to find birds is similar to that in Vestman Islands off Iceland, you find piles of dead puffins attached to ropes on the hillsides all over the island
Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the exception of a glorious 24 hours last week, with a temperature range..."we had a nasty frost that blasted the magnolias in the churchyard last week but it looks the shires will have a mild and very warm spring now...17c today...not my kind of weather
Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the exception of a glorious 24 hours last week, with a temperature range..."I'm not sorry to say that the worse we received yesterday here in Seattle was a hail the-size-of-very-mature-peas storm. You are more than welcome to your white stuff with its slick roads and late school openings.
Surely, it's time for spring.🟡🟡🟡
AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the exception of a glorious 24 hours last week, with a t..."It wasn't that warm up here in Derbyshire!
MK wrote: "If you are looking for a thriller, I recommend Serhii Plokhy's Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis[bookcover:Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis|53..."I'll have a look at that thanks. The nearest I have come (apart from remembering it happening) was the film Thirteen Days
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the exception of a glorious 24 hours last w..."i am thinking of moving North lol...the South East is starting to resemble a climate i really dislike, the entire "off season" as i call it (Oct-March) has been mild and mostly dry, so the chance to recharge my batteries with cold weather has gone and now we enter what i call "the on season" or what is fast becoming "global warming season", where milder and warmer temp records are set every week
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the exception of a glor..."Here is a picture to cheer you up https://i.postimg.cc/RCP7jkt3/Hunters... by Pieter Bruegel the elder... I still can't work out how to post the actual picture!....
Tam wrote: "Here is a picture to cheer you up https://i.postimg.cc/RCP7jkt3/Hunters... by Pieter Bruegel the elder... I still can't work out how to post the actual picture!...."
I'm not sure how cheering the "little ice age" is ...
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...
Bill wrote: "Tam wrote: "Here is a picture to cheer you up https://i.postimg.cc/RCP7jkt3/Hunters... by Pieter Bruegel the elder... I still can't work out how to post the actual picture!...."I'm not sure how..."
Thank you for posting this. There is a Bruegel room in the Kunsthistoriche Museum in Vienna. This picture hangs alongside a number of other fine canvases. I was in this room together with a group of American college students, from the University of Washington. Their teacher was showing them her favorite pictures, and I got to tag along. When the students were stumped by her questions, she let me offer an occasional answer. If I recall, this painting was part of a series about the seasons.
AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the exception of a glor..."I'm the exact opposite to you, preferring warmth over cold. However, the extreme changeability of the weather is concerning. Sure, springtime is the time of year when winter and summer clash for dominance and in my neck of the woods, wet and (very) windy weather interspersed with the odd settled day is the norm.
Apparently, Northern Ireland has had 90% more sunshine than normal for the month of March, which was lovely, but then the temperatures plunged with some overnight lows at freezing point which I'm sure has halted the growth of blossoms on a wee tree in my front garden.
I like warmth, but not too much warmer than 20 degrees. April is a good month for me to catch some sun without having to put sunscreen on, I hate getting cooked!
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the except..."love the snow and the gloomy skylines!
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for weeks (with the except..."i dont mind what i call english summer weather, 21-23cc with a breeze and some cloud but the pattern in SE England summers is for steadily rising temps leading to a week of foul hot weather, i cant remember the last spell of sustained temperate summer weather, instead its heatwaves interspersed with much cooler weather, which is no kind of summer. Summer 2018 from June to July was blazing heat and last summer there was a week where night temps didnt drop below 19c, horrible weather, no relief by night
Andy wrote: "I’ve been after that book Snow, Dog, Foot (Morandini) for while SN. It was recommended ages ago by someone at TLS"I daresay that was where I heard of it... in fact, to honour your present situation, I bought it (the e-book) and am already halfway through - it's pretty short.
As I suspected, the man - old, isolated - is going a bit doolally, and so to interpret the dog's comments as taking place in his dreams or daydreams is perfectly legitimate... we are not in The Bear Went Over the Mountain territory here. (I liked that well enough, but can't fully commit to fantasy.) So far, I am really enjoying it.
I was a bit naughty and bought a couple of books of Amazon last week. The first was
and the other was
.There is something very exciting about getting a package of books delivered to ones doorstep, but I don't want to do it too often - I hate the waste of those cardboard boxes and I'd rather hand over as little money to the beastly behemoth.
Written In Bone is intriguing, I've just finished the first chapter on the Neurocranium (basically your skullcap), and yes, the lack of diagrams is a little bit frustrating. What I imagined in my head reading the descriptions of the anatomical orientations of the bones was quite different in reality.
Sue Black is a Forensic Anthropologist whose role is to identify human remains, determine their age and if recent, will consult with Pathologists/Coroners to determine if foul play played a role in the persons death.
So yes, it can be quite gruesome at times, but there is a little gallows humour in it too - Sue remarked at one point that the experts would not not make good crime writers/journalists - one of the deaths investigated might have been written up as 'head in the shed'. I had a good chuckle at that.
My day job is testing blood samples in a Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory. The irony being is that I do not particularly like the sight of blood - the odd time I'll see a Haematology colleague with a unit of blood and it makes my stomach turn. Even worse is when the samples arrive and they are still warm.....
Georg wrote: "I have given up on several crime novels early on, but this is probably the first I threw with great force after 200/360+ pages....Elegy for April by Benjamin Black (aka John Banville)"Haha! Well, we are clearly of the same mind here - some time ago, I read the first of the 'Quirke' series - Christine Falls and also hated it. At the time, I commented along these lines:
A good crime novel needs three elements - decent writing, clear plotting and characters that are more than one-dimensional. Banville scores half a point out of three - he can write grammatically correct sentences, but not interesting ones.
I went on to point out several absurdities in the plot, and to say that not only would I not read any more by 'Black', but would avoid any novels by 'Banville' as well.
(FYI - that story also included an illegitimate birth as a key plot element.)
CCCubbon wrote: "@ABPeople had been living on St Kilda for at least 2,000 years. There is archaeological evidence going back to the Neolithic period.
I wonder how they got there!"
Might tthey have been able to walk at one time ? Or am I way out?
AB76 wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has been for week..."We've been having Western Washington spring weather-- sunshine, powerful winds, rain, thunder, very chilly nights, days of cloud.
MK wrote: "Help. I expect I could find it if I were diligent enough, but lazy. So I am asking - what was the Simenon mentioned here within the last month or so?Please advise as I meant to add it to that une..."
I did mention Le chien jaune (The Yellow Dog), in connection with Simenon's mastery of atmosphere and scene-setting. I have yet to write part 2 (about the hotel where much of the action takes place). Imagine my delight when I used Google Maps to discover that the Hotel de l'Amiral in Concarneau still exists, though now operating only as a restaurant! I could even see it using street view:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.87197...
Bill wrote: "Tam wrote: "Here is a picture to cheer you up https://i.postimg.cc/RCP7jkt3/Hunters... by Pieter Bruegel the elder... I still can't work out how to post the actual picture!...."I'm not sure how..."
I love his paintings. There is always something else to see.
Gpfr wrote: "In the 19th century a wealthy Englishman visited the island and was "appalled at the islanders' traditional blackhouses."Never read anything on St. Kilda (apart from the interesting discussion here), but this reminded me of The Blackhouse by Peter May, set on the not very distant Isle of Lewis (75 miles, or 10597 miles if you believe this:
https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Isle-of-Le...
They got the wrong St. Kilda!)
I'm pretty sure that the book - a murder mystery - also contains some of the history of Lewis - the sort of background that always appeals to me, so long as it's not overdone.
Bill wrote: "Tam wrote: "Here is a picture to cheer you up https://i.postimg.cc/RCP7jkt3/Hunters... by Pieter Bruegel the elder... I still can't work out how to post the actual picture!...."I'm not sure how..."
It's a nice picture, though I'm not sure how 'nice' living through that weather might be!
Lljones wrote: "It's official: I won't be finishing Crossroads. I've removed it from the breakfast table and placed it on the shelves somewhere, with just 70 or so pages to go. Maybe someone else w..."I expect that I'll get around to it sooner or later... Franzen is an interesting case - he seems capable of writing some very good 'sections' in his books, and others that feel badly misjudged. I've read all the novels except 'Crossroads'... I would not dream of manning the barricades on his behalf as a 'great American author', and yet - I prefer him to many given that accolade. He is not uniformly bad, which is something...
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I was a bit naughty and bought a couple of books of Amazon last week. ..."I set you off did I? 😀 I finished the Stella Rimington book and have now started on her other book:
I was macabrely (?) amused when she said that when they first started dissecting a human corpse it was obviously very cold in the room and was therefore difficult to feel their fingers. They soon learned that if they suddenly saw bright red arterial blood, it would be their own because they had cut a numb finger! A little further along in the book it perhaps wasn't a good idea to be reading the passage on the stages of decomposition while eating my lunch!
giveusaclue wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I was a bit naughty and bought a couple of books of Amazon last week. ..."I set you off did I? 😀
You most certainly did - although it doesn't take much! I've also read All That Remains which was very interesting. A strong stomach is recommended.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "I've been up for about five hours this morning, wandering around grumbling about how cold it is and has ..."i hope you are spared a repeat of the heatwave of last summer in a few months!
Two from me… He Arrived at Dusk by R.C. Ashby
The story as here presented is in three parts; three stories in one, three points of view; in fact, murder through the eyes of three men of widely differing mentality and outlook.
To begin with, William Mertoun relates his account of proceedings, to a friend in his London club over a drink, of how he had been engaged by a certain Colonel Barr to "value the contents" of his remote house in the Northumberland moors. When he arrives he discovers the the old Colonel is ill and indisposed, and that the house has a resident poltergeist. The Colonel’s nurse asks him stay on an additional week, and catalogue the books in the library. Mertoun discovers a local man has fallen to his death from the nearby cliffs, an apparent suicide, but things become even more bizarre when the Colonel’s mysterious nephew, who is acting as his host, tells him of the spectre of a Roman soldier who haunts the nearby moor.
This is an example of what the publisher, Valancourt, do so well, in discovering lost gems of British literature. It’s a sort of mix of Agatha Christie and Scooby Doo, though much more subtle than the latter.
Published initially in 1933, it bears that old adage, ‘they don’t write them like that any more’; a genuinely good mystery with a satisfying climax to it.
Ruby Constance Annie Ferguson, née Ashby, was born in Hebden Bridge, and lived her adult life in Manchester, where she subsidised her income as a secretary by writing short stories initially. She was better known for her children’s books which usually involved ponies, the Jill books.
and, Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani.
We discussed dystopias a week or so ago, and whether they need necessarily to be dark. Here is an interesting addition to the ‘genre’, that certainly isn’t.
There also seems to be rather a lot of new feminist dystopian books around at the moment, and in that regard at least, this is refreshing in its refusal to be pigeon-holed.
Japan exists no more, as to why, that is only hinted at, as being some sort of climatic disaster. Refugees from the ex-country are spread around the world. Initially Tawada concentrates on Hiroko, who teaches young immigrant children in Denmark to speak Panska (from Pan-Scandinavian), a language she has seemingly invented. It enables her to introduce her themes of language, immigration, globalisation, and authenticity. In Greenland, the ice and the fish have disappeared, but they can now grow vegetables. Finland has become known as the land of 3 S’s; sauna, Sibelius and sushi.
Nations, and national identity, are vanishing, homemade languages and climate refugees are now the norm.
This is a high-spirited but mischievous novel using several narrators to describe their situations in this new world. The chapters are almost stand-alone. It’s the first in a trilogy, which i was surprised by; though plenty of interesting ideas here, there were times also when my attention wandered.
Could have done with being shorter..
scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "I’ve been after that book Snow, Dog, Foot (Morandini) for while SN. It was recommended ages ago by someone at TLS"I daresay that was where I heard of it... in fact, t..."
Thanks SN.
Also for using the word ‘doolally’, which I haven’t come across for a while, and really enjoyed.
Andy wrote: "Also for using the word ‘doolally’, which I haven’t come across for a while, and really enjoyed."I do like a good word, here and there - so long as it's not overdone...
Just came across a real beaut - new to me - in Snow, Dog, Foot... 'borborygmus', which means 'a rumbling or gurgling noise made by the movement of fluid and gas in the intestines'.
It seems to have been that sort of week, on TV (Slow Horses), in the book (the old codger doesn't hold back) and in real life (don't ask!)
scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Help. I expect I could find it if I were diligent enough, but lazy. So I am asking - what was the Simenon mentioned here within the last month or so?Please advise as I meant to add it ..."
Thanks, it is now on my list. Venturing to Portland tomorrow and will be checking out used bookstores hoping to find it.
Residents of the UK don't know how good they have got it when it comes to picking up gems at charity shops. We don't have anything similar here in the States (only Goodwill which rarely has a great selection, plus they know what the 'good stuff' is and sell it online). I think that the costs of high street rents keeps charities from having anything similar here.
giveusaclue wrote: "Bill wrote: "Tam wrote: "Here is a picture to cheer you up https://i.postimg.cc/RCP7jkt3/Hunters... by Pieter Bruegel the elder... I still can't work out how to post the actual picture!...."Favorite of mine, too.
I'm..."
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I was a bit naughty and bought a couple of books of Amazon last week. ..."I set you off did I? 😀
You most certainly did - although it doesn't take much! I'..."
Have you ever looked at World of Books? Not Amazon, but sadly now owned by 'private equity' which is yet another downer.
Also here's a link to a gazillion online booksellers, some of which may work for you as an alternate to the dreaded Amazon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
PS - I have to add that I had to wait to check out at my local Whole Foods yesterday because the person in front of me decided to save $1.85 (I looked) and had to be helped signing up for Amazon Prime ($14.99/month or $139/year). I think he must have flown it from another planet. I mean we are talking Seattle! The checker even apologized!
I don't know about anyone else, but I sometimes find really cheap (5o¢ to $1) at the Friends of the Library shelving. Later I look at them and wonder - why did I do that? Then there are the times when I pick one up from the teetering pile and find I may just have found a gem. This happened Sunday when I picked up Last Waltz in Vienna
. I hadn't gotten very far when I had to look up where his great-grandfather came from. On today's maps this town (Bukovina) is ~80 miles SSE of Lviv. Wow! Then it was part of the Habsburg Empire and when the book was published (1981) was part of Russia.I haven't gotten too far along with it, but the author wrote engagingly, so I will continue along with him.
From a monthly email I may have found another book to add to the list; that is, once I've watched this event - A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard
which is shown here - https://rbkclibraries.wordpress.com/2...One of the reasons I like receiving this newsletter is that it comes once a month which means less clearing out of my inbox.
A first for Portland yesterday - (Seattle Times) Portland saw its first measurable snow in April in recorded history on Monday, with the region racking up more than a half-foot of snow. Brrr!
scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "Also for using the word ‘doolally’, which I haven’t come across for a while, and really enjoyed."I do like a good word, here and there - so long as it's not overdone...
Just came ac..."
These translators do such wonderful work..
How is Slow Horses adaptation? I saw a bad review and thought I’d avoid it…
MK wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I was a bit naughty and bought a couple of books of Amazon last week. ..."I set you off did I? 😀
You most certainly did - although it doe..."
Will have a look at World of Books thanks
Andy wrote: "Slow Horses adaptation?"I wrote a brief review on 8 April at 8.14pm... this is a part of it:
"The TV version of 'Slow Horses' is good entertainment, swinging back and forward from some lively action sequences to conversation and banter. The cast is excellent. I suppose for those who have read the books, those chats in which we learn who the 'slow horses' are, why they're there, and why they are so called may feel overlong, but if you come to it fresh (as I did) then they're necessary. The office scenes seem designed to out-sordid 'The Ipcress File', which I also saw and enjoyed recently, though the ending in that case seemed over-convoluted and a bit messy."
As I haven't read the book, I have no idea how well the TV programme follows the plot... have now seen the third episode, and am still on board. I'm not sure if we get 'borborygmus', but certainly a fair amount of flatulence is produced by Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman)...
Mod
Uh-huh.
The snow didn't last long, but I still can't shake my feeling of indignation,
Herodotus. Brief report on Book Four (Melpomene). He is now mainly concerned with the vast and empty lands of the Scythians, and their blood-curdling customs. They occupy the coastal areas and hinterland on the north side of the Black Sea, all the way to the Cremni, or Cliffs, today called Crimea – so, the southern part of modern Ukraine. The invading emperor Darius and his powerful army are baffled by the tactics of the Scythians, who have no towns and avoid open battle. Darius gives up and withdraws.
The description of the topography leads Herodotus to debate the comparative dimensions of Asia and Europe, and of Libya, being the entire region west and south of Egypt, and a land which he says is washed by the sea on all sides except where it is attached to Asia. He records a story he has heard that a ship crewed by Phoenicians set out south from an Egyptian port on the Red Sea and sailed for two years or more, circumnavigating the whole land of Libya, and returning to Egypt in the third year via the Pillars of Hercules. The bit he says outright he does not believe is that in the southern ocean they had the sun on their right hand. This detail is so strange and compelling that you wonder if the Phoenicians really might have circumnavigated Africa.
The description of the topography leads Herodotus to debate the comparative dimensions of Asia and Europe, and of Libya, being the entire region west and south of Egypt, and a land which he says is washed by the sea on all sides except where it is attached to Asia. He records a story he has heard that a ship crewed by Phoenicians set out south from an Egyptian port on the Red Sea and sailed for two years or more, circumnavigating the whole land of Libya, and returning to Egypt in the third year via the Pillars of Hercules. The bit he says outright he does not believe is that in the southern ocean they had the sun on their right hand. This detail is so strange and compelling that you wonder if the Phoenicians really might have circumnavigated Africa.
Russell wrote: "Herodotus. Brief report on Book Four (Melpomene). He is now mainly concerned with the vast and empty lands of the Scythians, and their blood-curdling customs. They occupy the coastal areas and hint...He records a story he has heard that a ship crewed by Phoenicians set out south from an Egyptian port on the Red Sea and sailed for two years or more, circumnavigating the whole land of Libya, and returning to Egypt in the third year via the Pillars of Hercules. The bit he says outright he does not believe is that in the southern ocean they had the sun on their right hand. This detail is so strange and compelling that you wonder if the Phoenicians really might have circumnavigated Africa. "
I like to think they did, based on that detail, although I suppose other explanations are possible.
I came a cross a new-to-me translation the other day, by Tom Holland, a historian I've heard of but none of whose books I've read. I was very tempted to pick it up, though I'm not sure I can justify it to myself - I already have three or four different versions. Which one are you reading, BTW? You may have mentioned this already but I missed it.
Berkley wrote: "Russell wrote: "Herodotus. Brief report on Book Four..." ... I already have three or four different versions. Which one are you reading, BTW?"
I’m reading an old one, by George Rawlinson, 1858. I"m finding it clear and fluent, with plenty of explanatory footnotes, and as a translation it feels solid. I expect you know it - it’s the one used by Everyman. I didn’t know about the Tom Holland. I’ve tried reading a couple of his ancient histories, which seem to be widely read in the UK and have won prizes, but somehow they’re just not to my taste. I’ll ask the library to find a copy of his Herodotus, to see how it compares.
I’m reading an old one, by George Rawlinson, 1858. I"m finding it clear and fluent, with plenty of explanatory footnotes, and as a translation it feels solid. I expect you know it - it’s the one used by Everyman. I didn’t know about the Tom Holland. I’ve tried reading a couple of his ancient histories, which seem to be widely read in the UK and have won prizes, but somehow they’re just not to my taste. I’ll ask the library to find a copy of his Herodotus, to see how it compares.
I had a bit of a giggle this morning on reading the Guardian review of Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes - a bit of a puzzle, full of references and in-jokes, apparently. I may buy it, though it sounds like a fairly difficult read - but I do like Barnes (usually).Anyway, this is the passage that caught my eye - 'Neil' is the book's narrator:
...his editors at the London Review of Books, where Barnes writes regularly, would probably enjoy Neil’s summary of the publication’s reputation as “a nest of leftists, subversives, pseudo-intellectuals, cosmopolitans, traitors, liars and anti-monarchist vermin”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
That sounds so good, I am almost tempted to take out a subscription - but won't, because if I subscribed to all the magazines which have occasionally interesting articles, I'd have no time left to read actual books - and I read far too much as it is!
Russell wrote: "Berkley wrote: "Russell wrote: "Herodotus. Brief report on Book Four..." ... I already have three or four different versions. Which one are you reading, BTW?"I’m reading an old one, by George Rawlinson, 1858 ..."
I may actually go in that direction next time I read Herodotus, rather than a more recent version. After doing a bit of online research, it seems the earliest English translation was surprisingly late - nothing until 1728. I was thinking about looking for that one, but after comparing a few online samples, I might opt for either the Rawlinson or a late-Victorian (1890) version by one GC MacAulay.
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Elizabeth Finch (other topics)A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard (other topics)
Last Waltz in Vienna (other topics)
Snow, Dog, Foot (other topics)
Snow, Dog, Foot (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Yōko Tawada (other topics)R.C. Ashby (other topics)
Tom Steel (other topics)
Elisabeth Gifford (other topics)
Nicolas Mathieu (other topics)
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A little personal background - I was living just south of DC at the time and surely would have been in the damage zone if . . . Plus, a family member was a USAF fighter pilot, and his squadron was moved (secretly, but you can imagine how long it took for that to leak) to an Air Force base in Florida.
I had been reading a few pages a day until 'all hell broke loose.' There are a number of so-near misses (confrontation in the Sargasso Sea anyone?) that kept me reading even though we all know how this confrontation ended. The book also reminded me what a roll Berlin (Khrushchev saying the West should leave) played in the run-up.
And finally, this book reinforces how crucial it is to have a knowledgeable leader (Biden!) in charge as Kennedy comes off quite unprepared.
If you are wondering what an author whose a Ukrainian specialist is doing writing this particular book, Plokhy states that his research was done in part in Ukraine archives as Ukraine was a part of the USSR in the '60s.
Now, I've taken an unread paperback of The Eagle Has Landed