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What are we reading? 13th April 2022
Just an addendum that might not be of interest to most people:the cause of death for a lot of writers/artists in the 18th/19th century ist still put down to syphilis.
The reason for that is that syphilis has been the "great imitator" (tuberculosis is another one though with different symptoms), meaning that most illnesses with neurological symptoms were thought to be caused by syphilis.
ETA Hoffmann probably died of MND, not syphilis.
Nietzsche probably suffered from and died of "cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy" (CADASIL), a rare hereditary disease leading to multiple strokes, rather than syphilis.
While looking for something else I came across a rather odd book called13 Ways to smell a tree byDavid Haskell.
Being something of a sucker for books about trees I was intrigued to ‘get to know trees by their scent’, having been known to hug a tree in the past.
I have dipped into a few chapters, some are quite short, the first concerns the horse chestnut, a much admired tree for its leaf and candles in spring and the polished mahogany of its conkers. It reminded me how we soaked the conkers in vinegar and baked them to toughen but how somehow my fingers were hit more than the conker on the end of the string. That’s not much about scent.
The second introduced me to the American Basswood which I gather smells strongly in early summer despite the flowers being inconspicuous. I had to look up that one to find out what it looked like. The third was all about gin and tonic, the drink. According to Haskell this popular drink came about because the British in India needed quinine to counter malaria, quinine coming from the bark of the chinchona tree of South America. Quinine being rather bitter it was mixed with flavours lime and juniper and added to carbonated water to make it drinkable. Certainly some scents there.
I have wandered through Ponderosa pines , reminding me of pine plantations here but perhaps the fact that I shall remember is that the ginkgo has very smelly fruit but is possibly one of the most ancient species of tree on the planet surviving almost unchanged for at least 200 million years. Now that is impressive.
The Revolution Script by Brain Moore (1971) is enthralling meCanadian politics and social situations in Quebec are central to this novelisation of the real life 1970 October crisis. The Front for the Liberation of Quebec kidnap two men linked to power in French Canada and the novel covers the tense weeks as the crisis unfolds.
The FLQ are a desperate muddle of marxists, with the weight of the Canadian state against them. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, young, dashing and bi-lingual takes a firm hand against the terrorists but tragedy strikes when one of the hostages is killed and FLQ dreams are shattered, as public opinion, even within Quebec turns against them.
Moore narrates the novel with a mix of journalism and literary flair, the streets of Montreal are the setting, from "Anglo " Westmount to the poverty specked streets of the French-Canadian working class where the FLQ sprang from
For once I've already read a winner. The Edgar Awards were just announced and the winner, Five Decembers
by James Kestrel begins on Oahu just before December 7th and, after 5 Decembers in the Pacific Theater, ends there 5 years later.I won't say any more because I am lousy at that and who wants to give anything away. Well worth a read, though.
If you have some space on your TBR list, here are the nominees for all Edgar categories this year - https://edgarawards.com/wp-content/up...
AB76 wrote: Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, young, dashing ...Young? Dashing?? Seriously???
Mod
to celebrate take a look at - https://www.cromerperegrineproject.co..."
Such a beautiful bird
Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, young, dashing ...Young? Dashing?? Seriously???"
Pierre never forgot his Jesuit training. A master of maneuver, who loved to sneer at his opponents.
MK wrote: "For once I've already read a winner. The Edgar Awards were just announced and the winner, Five Decembers by James Kestrel begins..."I saw this was a winner.
At first the 432 pages put me off.
But now your recommendation, and the cover.. like a 50s hard-boiled paperback, looks wonderful.
I may well give it a go..
Robert wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, young, dashing ...Young? Dashing?? Seriously???"
Pierre never forgot his Jesuit training. A master of maneuver, who..."
i have always like Trudeau Snr, his political writings are very interesting, a rare intellectual politician in the post-war era but a wily operator and skilled in the jesuit practices as you say Robert.
I aim to read both of the biogs of him by John English and i'm also a fan of Trudeau Jnr..
AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, young, dashing ...Young? Dashing?? Seriously???"
Pierre never forgot his Jesuit training. A master o..."
The dismal Chretien had Pierre's anti-Americanism but lacked his brains.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, young, dashing ...Young? Dashing?? Seriously???"
Pierre never forgot his Jesuit trainin..."
so true Robert,Trudeau balanced the situation of being a French-Canadian prime minister of an anglo dominated nation like Canada wilth real skill, Chretien was a blunderer
my new avatar is Pierre and Lester B Pearson in 1969, dashing and young, Pierre is the new hope for Canada in the late 1960s
Laurier is still my favourite French-Canadian premier of Canada(not that was alive when he was PM but through reading and studying the politics of the time). I always admire politicians willing to compromise and Laurier managed that between the french and anglo-canadian worlds
There is an interesting scene between Laurier and a fictional Canadian Senator in Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bone, which I just re-read.
I’m told there are 5 eggs in the barn owl box this morning - mum sitting so I haven’t seen them yet.https://www.lenpicktrust.org.uk/owl-p...
Robert wrote: "There is an interesting scene between Laurier and a fictional Canadian Senator in Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bone, which I just re-read."is that one of Davies triology novels? I must read some Davies...
Mod
is that one of Davies triology novels? I must read some Davies..."
Yes, you must, AB!
What's Bred in the Bone is the 2nd in the Cornish trilogy, which was the first I read. 2 friends recommended Davies to me separately but very shortly one after the other, and what a good recommendation that was. I recently re-read the Salterton trilogy which was the only one I didn't own having borrowed it from the library. So I bought it and was very happy to read it again.
AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "There is an interesting scene between Laurier and a fictional Canadian Senator in Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bone, which I just re-read."is that one of Davies triology no..."
It's the central novel of the so-called Cornish trilogy, named after the old man whose art collection, and odd will, set the three stories in motion.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "There is an interesting scene between Laurier and a fictional Canadian Senator in Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bone, which I just re-read."is that one of Davie..."
i've read a lot of canadian lit but nothing by him and i will make a note of that triology Robert, thanks
Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: " Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bone"is that one of Davies triology novels? I must read some Davies..."
Yes, you must, AB!
What's Bred in the Bone is the 2nd in..."
thanks GPFR
I second GPFR. Big, rich novel, and a fine read. I've posted a few observations as I re-read it.
CCCubbon wrote: "I’m told there are 5 eggs in the barn owl box this morning - mum sitting so I haven’t seen them yet.https://www.lenpicktrust.org.uk/owl-p..."
Anyone for peregrines? Here's a link to the pair at Cromer (Poppy (for Poppyland) for Mom and Henry (famous Cromer lifeboatman) for Dad) with two chicks this year - https://www.cromerperegrineproject.co...
They can also be followed on youtube by searching there for Cromer peregrines.
Anyone here interested in a thriller? I downloaded Serhii Plokhy's Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe
, and it is a real pageturner (if you can turn pages on an audio book). The disaster, follow-on denials, and scramble to contain its environmental affects (like getting into the water table or the Dnieper River*), in part, was caused by the Communist Party and its leaders who used carrots (bonuses) and sticks (denial of advancement, etc.) in construction and their inability to initially accept the magnitude of the disaster. It wasn't until 18 days after the explosion that Gorbachev announced its happening.
While I have not finished the book, I am looking forward to his soon-to-be available at my local library, Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters
. I remember especially Three Mile Island (TMI) as I lived in the DC area when that happened (~120 miles southeast).*In 2005 I was lucky enough to score a place on a tour of Hanford Reservation in Eastern Washington. The folks at my work might have rolled their eyes, but the latent scientist in me thoroughly enjoyed it. The tour included a stop where EPA contractors were trying to keep tainted ground water from reaching the Columbia River and the one remaining reactor (B Reactor - now a national monument) which was fascinating in that it was built without all our current technical (read computer) skills.
Cleanup at Hanford continues with $2+ billion being allocated this year. I wonder in whose lifetime this will be considered complete. (Note: Hanford supplied the plutonium for the first atomic test in New Mexico and for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.)
This book is a cautionary tale which should be required reading for anyone advocating nuclear power as any kind of energy solution.
Still enjoying Rex Warners The Aerodrome, hang on, not enoying, its too unsettling and uneasy a novel to enjoy, it rather supplies a kind of tense anticipation of the next event that might leap from the pageI'm not sure Paul Bowles has written much by 1941, or that Warner knew about the american writer but this has elements of the "cold" style that Bowles wrote with, but maybe more unsettling as rather than North Africa, its set in a very familiar England of the 1930s
Would like to know what made Vintage re-issue this novel, it seems his others are available in Penguin
Mod
Being something of a sucker for books about trees I was intrigued to ‘get to know trees by their scent’..."
I've just started Elizabeth and Her German Garden:
And what can life in town offer in the way of pleasure to equal the delight of any one of the calm evenings I have had this month sitting alone at the foot of the verandah steps, with the perfume of young larches all about, and the May moon hanging low over the beeches ...She was obviously a woman after my own heart;
The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook.
I'm puzzled by the choice of photo for the cover which I don't like at all. It doesn't seem appropriate.
Two to report on from Kemmeribodenbad in Swiss Alps.. The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck by Alexander Laing
Reissued by Valancourt in 2016 this is an unpleasant and gruesome story that is not quite a mystery, and not quite the supernatural. Insane doctors crop up occasionally in horror fiction, many more infamous than Gideon Wyck, though he certainly would qualify.
First published in those halcyon days for horror, the 1930s, the book is depicted as a true manuscript penned by a medical student at a rural Maine University. The cruel, but brilliant, Wyck seems to be the centre of numerous disturbing incidents in the town, including, a seemingly unnecessary amputation which has left the patient raving about the devil and babies born with deformities. When Wyck’s cadaver turns up the mysterious events continue to occur.
This may all sound quite typical of a horror novel of its age, but the beauty of it is that it turns in the direction the reader would least expect it to. For its time therefore, it is a bold piece of experimental fiction. Some of Laing’s ideas work less well than others, but he just about manages to keep it grounded in reality, bearing in mind that it needs to be read in the spirit in which it was written, and a basic understanding of how fiction of the time worked.
Excuse its few flaws, and it’s enjoyable and grisly caper.
and, Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au Au’s short tale has its moments, but few of them. A daughter, who narrates, is reunited with her mother for a sight-seeing trip to Tokyo, having not seen her for many years. Initially her concern for her mother, a diligence bordering on perfectionism, seems charming, but after just a few pages it begins to grate and annoy. But it is her unreliability that holds the interest.
I’m torn in the end, cleverly subtle, or just down right dull..
Gpfr wrote: I'm puzzled by the choice of photo for the cover which I don't like at all. It doesn't seem appropriateBehind that cover I'd expect to find a horror story called "The Day of the German Triffids" or some such.
(I wonder why the English translator(s) felt it necessary to insert "German" into the original title "Elizabeth and her Garden")
Today I have reached half-way through ‘him-in-doors’s’ radiotherapy treatment, for his prostate cancer. It feels like quite a long haul so far, which takes roughly 4 hrs a day commute for treatment in Oxford, 5 days a week, for four weeks. I am mostly sitting in the park nearby during treatment (which, in terms of the actual radiotherapy, is just ten minutes!), where I am following 3 magpies, and their various squabbles. Ever since I read that folklore suggests that I greet them with an “I salute you oh captain” I have been unable to refrain from saying it whenever a magpie approaches. I must be quite suggestable, at least by, and to, birdlife.It is a strange place, the British evolving hospital, through time, and happenstance. I don’t think it ever had a coherent plan in terms of its evolution. It used to be an ‘American hospital’ and bits have that bodged together feel, at least in terms of planning, of a building/site-survivor of WWII. I set off one day to find the central refectory, and asked directions of people in blue scrubs (I remember my days of watching ER, in terms of identifying a native health worker), however I never received any instructions that lasted any longer than ‘take 2 lefts, and a right, and then ask someone else’!... Well I got there in the end, a strange place that reminded me of school canteens, but without the people (but with a vegan/vegetarian section). I had the loneliest breakfast that I think that I have ever had. The bacon I could have used for a good few (childhood-like) skips across the water of a lake, if one had been handy, it was so hard… Well I can do hard… as I said to myself... I have been there before…
I set off to find my original point of entry, and discovered that one of the main purposes of art in hospitals is in order to identify which corridor I, and others, am walking through, I have become quite wedded to, a rather surprising, Japanese kimono, as an identifier for being on ‘the right path’. I saw a door with ‘Live Donor Room’ on a memorable plaque on the outside. Oh, what do I do, if I open this door, will I find Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly delights’ unfold in front of me?
At that point a woman appeared being ferried down the corridor, she was very old, and, tiny. she held a rigid, unlikely position on her back, just like ‘the mermaid of the Liffey’, https://i.postimg.cc/Gt08sT9Y/downloa... with an arm raised ahead or her as some kind of admonishment to the nature of the universe, at least it seemed to me, as if she was Brunhilde, riding a Valkyrie!.. She was on the most enormous trolley which took three people to push, and guide it. It wasn’t until much later that I realised that probably the hospital had had to ‘gear up’ with the sort of equipment that could cope with obese patients, and that such a small and almost ‘skeletal’ woman’s ‘carriage’ was just an example of resources having to stretch across a much wider cross-section of ‘types’ from the general public these days.
For the first week or so I had Susan Sontag as my reading companion, but she was not that congenial for the circumstances, so I have moved on to ‘The Doors of Eden’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I tried his earlier book, ‘A child of Time’ but did not get on with it at all. Spiders aren’t my thing I think, but this one is more congenial, and comprehensible, time-slip, morphed earth, over millions of years-worth of extinction/rebirth sort of stuff, with ‘woke’ people getting into trouble in a ‘falling foul of MI5’ sort of way. Easy going stuff somehow, though long, and so heavy to carry around…
I had a dream about Susan a week or so ago. She was there in Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’, standing in for Mary Magdalene, her of very uncertain historical provenance (Mary that is), and surrounded by a fair selection of 20th century art critics, hanging on to her every word. She held forth like the ‘queen’ that she seemed to really think herself to be. Needless to say, the position taken by the ‘doubting Thomas’, in my dream, was conscripted by Robert Hughes!...
Here is Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ https://i.postimg.cc/mDp1Z6Wd/5775583...
for those that might be interested. Mary is on Jesus’s right hand… some opinions, of who each, and everyone, represents, are different… and highly contestable… I fear I have made quite a digression somehow… Apologies…
Tam wrote: "Today I have reached half-way through ‘him-in-doors’s’ radiotherapy treatment, for his prostate cancer. It feels like quite a long haul so far, which takes roughly 4 hrs a day commute for treatment..."gosh, what a commute, i hope the treatment all goes well Tam, sounds exhausting
@Tam. Hope all goes well with the Radiotherapy treatment. I have very close friends who have been through the procedure, and know that support for those going through it, and those close to them helps all those concerned.
Tam wrote: "Today I have reached half-way through ‘him-in-doors’s’ radiotherapy treatment, for his prostate cancer. It feels like quite a long haul so far, which takes roughly 4 hrs a day commute for treatment..."I took my father to those treatments. Godspeed to you both.
Mod
I've walked in your shoes more than once, Tam. So many memories revived with your post; thank you for sharing this with us. Like @Robert, I wish you and your husband peace and Godspeed.
Forty years ago I walked the halls of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle while my sister underwent a bone-marrow transplant. The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor was my companion.
Georg wrote: "Just an addendum that might not be of interest to most people:the cause of death for a lot of writers/artists in the 18th/19th century ist still put down to syphilis.
The reason for that is that..."
That is interesting Georg, and new information to me. Up to now I'd always taken such statements at face value.
@GeorgElizabeth von Arnim wrote in English. Her first husband was German.
Finished Iris Murdoch's The Bell a few days ago and found it both entertaining and thought-provoking, like everything of hers I've read so far. Most of the entertainment came from one particular character, Dora, a young married woman struggling with her marriage to a man I think we would now see as a straightforwardly abusive husband, although that word isn't used in the novel. At any rate, she is probably one of the most likeable and engaging fictional personas I've come across recently. There is phrase in the book that is used by another character in regard to Dora - that she is like "le jeune homme de Dijon qui n'avait aucune religion". It is given in italics and in French in the novel (though not in quotation marks), which makes me feel it's probably a quote or at least a reference to something Murdoch must have thought fairly well known at the time, but a quick search has yielded no results. Anyone recognise it? The general rhythm and the rhyme of Dijon and religion sounds to me like it might be from a poem or ballad, or perhaps a popular song or something.
Mod
I hope all goes well with the treatment - will be thinking of you both.
Mod
The only part of the house described in much detail is her library:
It look, I am afraid, rather too gay for an ideal library; and its colouring, white and yellow, is so cheerful as to be almost frivolous. There are white bookcases all round the walls, and there is a great fireplace, and four windows, facing full south, opening on to my most cherished bit of garden ... so that with so much colour and such a big fire and such floods of sunshine it has anything but a sober air, in spite of the venerable volumes filling the shelves.I've looked up some information about her life - I didn't know that Katherine Mansfield was her cousin.
I've now bought Vera.
Berkley wrote: "Finished Iris Murdoch's The Bell a few days ago and found it both entertaining and thought-provoking, like everything of hers I've read so far. Most of the entertainment came from one particular ch..."I think it comes from a French Limerick
“Il y avait un jeune homme de Dijon
Qui n’aimait du tout la religon.
Il dit: “Eh ma foi;
Je deteste tous les trois,
Le Pere, et le Fils, et le Pigeon”.
which, roughly tranlated, is:
There was a young man of Dijon
Who had no time at all for religon.
He said: “As for me,
I detest all the three,
The Father, the Son and the Pigeon”.
MK wrote: "Happy Beltane everyone.❤to celebrate take a look at - https://www.cromerperegrineproject.co..."
I'll raise you an osprey or two!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHGPF...
Tam wrote: "Today I have reached half-way through ‘him-in-doors’s’ radiotherapy treatment, for his prostate cancer. It feels like quite a long haul so far, which takes roughly 4 hrs a day commute for treatment..."Four hours commuting every day must be very exhausting, mentally and physically. Especially when you have all these worries and anxieties to cope with.
Thinking of you, Tam, and sending best wishes to you and him-indoors.
Diana wrote: "@GeorgElizabeth von Arnim wrote in English. Her first husband was German."
Thanks! It was a long time ago I read it and I'd completely forgotten that. The coin should have dropped when I looked at my (German) copy to check the title: "Elizabeth", not "Elisabeth".
Elizabeth von Arnim – I’m a few chapters into her novel The Enchanted April (1922) and am thoroughly enjoying it.
Two married ladies, not acquainted, not employed, not well off, thirty-ish, are at their London club. They each see an ad in The Times for an Italian medieval castle for rent. They get talking. The two of them together might just be able to afford it. They decide it could do no harm to write for details. Somehow, in the same conversation, they each discover they are unhappy, because their marriages are moribund.
They arrive. “The first thing to happen in this house,” says one to the other, “shall be a kiss.”
Is the story going to take a turn I was not expecting?
Two other English ladies have joined the party, one older who is rather commanding, one younger who wishes to be left languidly alone. Now we have a full quartetto italiano of off-balance characters.
Written carefully, and correctly, but with a lot of wit, and a lot of commas, this is, so far, a delicious entertainment.
Two married ladies, not acquainted, not employed, not well off, thirty-ish, are at their London club. They each see an ad in The Times for an Italian medieval castle for rent. They get talking. The two of them together might just be able to afford it. They decide it could do no harm to write for details. Somehow, in the same conversation, they each discover they are unhappy, because their marriages are moribund.
They arrive. “The first thing to happen in this house,” says one to the other, “shall be a kiss.”
Is the story going to take a turn I was not expecting?
Two other English ladies have joined the party, one older who is rather commanding, one younger who wishes to be left languidly alone. Now we have a full quartetto italiano of off-balance characters.
Written carefully, and correctly, but with a lot of wit, and a lot of commas, this is, so far, a delicious entertainment.
Mod
I also liked that a lot. I've just finished Elizabeth and her German Garden as I've written about earlier, and now, Russell, I have to thank you for the recommendation of The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I by Roger Shattuck. I ordered it on reading your review but have only just started reading it now. So far, so good, it's great. I'm encountering some of the same figures as in Julian Barnes' The Man in the Red Coat.
Sadly, Warners "The Aerodrome" has been dumped, i started to lose interest in the style and the manner of the novel, after initially loving it, with its pastoral narrativeI am moving on to a novel i meant to read in April but postponed, which is The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence(1964). The Canadian prairies have always fascinated me and a relative settled out there briefly in the 1930s only to return as a teenager in WW2.
Gpfr wrote: "Russell wrote: "Elizabeth von Arnim – I’m a few chapters into her novel The Enchanted April (1922) and am thoroughly enjoying it ..."I also liked that a lot. I've just finished Elizabeth and her ..."
i like that recommendation too Russ.....
Mod
About a year ago, I read A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale. It takes as its starting point the story of his great-grandfather, in the early 20th century, who left a wife and child in England to go out to Canada and take up the offer of free land in return for fencing and cultivating it, . Gale doesn't know much more than these basic facts, but imagines why Harry left and what happened to him in Canada.
scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "Happy Beltane everyone.❤to celebrate take a look at - https://www.cromerperegrineproject.co..."
I'll raise you an osprey or two!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHGPF..."
Just checked the 'loon situation' which means I'll have to wait 'til later this month when an egg or two are laid! in the meantime, here's the link - https://loon.org/looncam/
PS - Check out my avatar.
Tam wrote: "Today I have reached half-way through ‘him-in-doors’s’ radiotherapy treatment, for his prostate cancer. It feels like quite a long haul so far, which takes roughly 4 hrs a day commute for treatment..."My thoughts are with you and "him-in-doors" Tam. I hope he does as well as my friend. His chemo treatment was delayed for 6 months (diagnosed right at the beginning of lockdown) and was told it could be controlled. After chemo and radiotherapy he has been given the all-clear. So fingers all crossed for you.
@Give - I see you are reading Bradecote and Catchpoll. I'm thinking of forgiveness and picking up the fifth in the series after really not liking - Hostage to Fortune
which turned way to 'romantic' for me. Not that I want to discourage you from picking it up.
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Opening in the days of mid-spring, the great man comes to recently short lived capital of Italy to write and study. She follows him on his walks and uses his letters to construct the course of his weeks and days.Lonely and melancholy but alive with intellectual vigour, alongside intermittent ill health, he is a dynamo of thought and ideas.
He leaves the city to move North into Switzerland as the heat hits in June, spending little on food, nibbling on "wurst" supplied by his mother and complaining of the weather and his migraines.
Chamberlain never leaves things without the information needed, so place is as important as the mind of the master. She describes 1880s Turin and the Swiss town of Sils. Always looking south away from the Tuetonic fogs and chills of his homeland, he is charmed by the colours and light of Sils, though not the temperatures.
One feels for the man as you walk in his shoes, what he truly desired externally never really happened to him but internally he did feel the joys and passions of great thoughts and good reading.
I found this by chance in Waterstones and i am reading it slowly, with love