What are we reading? 11th May 2022

[giveusaclue]

scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I will definitely be reading more in the Logan McRae series."

I have read them all (to date - I think the series continues...) I did pause for a while after one which ended nas..."

Yes, I noticed in the one I have read that it is much grittier than a lot of the crime novels I read. Nasty, smells in particular!

[Tam]

scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "MK wrote: "If (money) had a built-in annual decrease in face value, then it could no longer be speculated upon..."

I thought we already had this - it's called 'inflation' and is curren..."
No inflation is not the same thing at all. Although all people suffer under high inflation they do not do so equally. The poorest will take the brunt of the suffering. As I understand it, Silvio Gesell's economic theory was devised so that all money lost worth automatically over time and at the same time. This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend it early in the cycle, so other people would be employed to generate improvements to their lives.

BUT and MOST IMPORTANTLY... it was to stop the rich from hoarding their wealth. This was the revolutionary bit. Of course you can always hoard using other means such as gold or land etc. so I can see it would have some weaknesses. But land can be taxed and I'm not sure hoarding gold would be that popular as it would put you at risk of theft, so if it was kept in a bank for safety it could also be taxed.

I was just after a knowledgable economist to discuss the theory as I am interested in ways to level-out society, as being a bit of an old hippy, I believe vast wealth inequality is, globally, a social evil... and a source of great unhappiness...at least to "the poor and huddled masses"...

[giveusaclue]

Tam wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "MK wrote: "If (money) had a built-in annual decrease in face value, then it could no longer be speculated upon..."

I thought we already had this - it's called 'infl..."
Reminds of the Hatton Garden safety vault break in a few years ago. Possibly a few ill-gotten gains stashed there no doubt. And customers couldn't sue the vault owners for the value of lost goods as they had no proof, of course, of what was in their boxes.

[Georg]

SydneyH wrote: "Paul wrote: "I doubt Coetzee has any desire to respond to the provocation, but it would be nice to see a challenge."

I think it would be out of character for Coetzee to respond. As far as I'm awar..."

Re Amis: 'Why would the oak care that a pig uses it to scratch an itch' (German saying)

[scarletnoir]

Tam wrote: "This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend (money) early in the cycle, so other people would be employed to generate improvements to their lives."

I see... unfortunately, most wealth these days is not held in cash, but in properties, shares, football clubs and arworks - ask the Russian oligarchs, or various kleptocrats from all over who have bought properties in London for huge prices.

Of course, I assume such wealth could be taxed - in theory - but with Rishi Sunak now ensconced as a member of the UK's rich list, somehow I don't see that happening any time soon.

(I agree with your principles, naturally.)

[MK]

scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "MK wrote: "If (money) had a built-in annual decrease in face value, then it could no longer be speculated upon..."

I thought we already had this - it's called 'inflation' and is curren..."

I just thought of 'the present value of money' and googled it. There's a formula!!!

As my father did not believe girls should have a college education, I was sent to a secretarial school. It was only much later that I went first to 2-year course where I'm sure one of the required subjects was Macro Economics. That is probably why 'the present value of money' popped into my head.

[MK]

@clue - This might find a spot on the nightstand -Murder Before Evensong .

[CCCubbon]

giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "@scarletnoir
Congratulations on your mother's 100th! Has she had a card from the queen?"

Indeed, yes... I may post a photo of her holding it if..."

The last time that I contacted ‘Help’ in November I think they promised to sort it out. We were only able to add comments for about 3 weeks when this goodreads account started.
They promise but do nothing.

[giveusaclue]

MK wrote: "@clue - This might find a spot on the nightstand -Murder Before Evensong."

Ha, will have to look out for that one

[Gpfr]

scarletnoir wrote: "I have posted a photo... I also wrote a comment, but that isn't there...."

When you post a photo, you write what you want in the 'Description' box.
As far as comments go, they worked for the 1st "page" of photos, but not for subsequent ones. If you write a comment on someone eise's photo, it disappears, but the person who posted the photo gets a notification and can see it.

[Tam]

scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend (money) early in the cycle, so other people would be employed to generate improvements to their ..."

Both Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier were very far from being socialists. FLW an American 'libertarian', of his own times, perhaps. And 'Le Corb' was really rather right-wing, in a very paternalistic sort of way, but they both supported land-reform, to benefit the working classes of their own societies, and a more equal distributions of wealth within their respective societies.

I am much more interested in their ideas, rather then their own personal histories, which many people have written about, in various ways, so I haven't actually gone down that route, of judging them for their own personal lives and history, though many do, and will de-bunk them totally, because their histories are full of human failings, and dodgy allegiances!... amongst a whole host of other things...

[Berkley]

AB76 wrote: "
Greenfairy mentioned Dune, i watched the new film in two parts, while the first hour was an impressive rendering of the book, i found the second half, after the fall of House Altreides rather dull and the squeaky voiced hero reminding me more and more of the hobbit actor fellow in Lord of the Rings, the charisma of a cowpat.....while his mother, well played in Lynch's film, is a strange cringing bag of nerves."

Yes, I noticed that as well: the Lady Jessica was far too weepy and emotional in her earlier scenes. In the book she's self-controlled to a fault, the way I remember it. And the actor that played young Paul seemed miscast to me - I think he'd be more at home in a contemporary American teen comedy, not an epic space opera. But I suppose this discussion should take place in the film/tv forum.

[Berkley]

Tam wrote: "
No inflation is not the same thing at all. Although all people suffer under high inflation they do not do so equally. The poorest will take the brunt of the suffering. As I understand it, Silvio Gesell's economic theory was devised so that all money lost worth automatically over time and at the same time. This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend it early in the cycle, so other people would be employed to generate improvements to their lives.

BUT and MOST IMPORTANTLY... it was to stop the rich from hoarding their wealth. This was the revolutionary bit. Of course you can always hoard using other means such as gold or land etc. so I can see it would have some weaknesses. But land can be taxed and I'm not sure hoarding gold would be that popular as it would put you at risk of theft, so if it was kept in a bank for safety it could also be taxed.

I was just after a knowledgable economist to discuss the theory as I am interested in ways to level-out society, as being a bit of an old hippy, I believe vast wealth inequality is, globally, a social evil... and a source of great unhappiness...at least to "the poor and huddled masses"

The ancient Spartans used to use clumsy iron bars as their currency - as a disincentive to accumulating wealth, as I understood it when I read about this long ago.

Of course they were also based on an exploitative serf/apartheid economy where the Helots provided them with food and other necessities, allowing them devote their time to military training, so perhaps not the best example of an egalitarian society once you look outside the Spartiates themselves.

[Berkley]

scarletnoir wrote: "I see... unfortunately, most wealth these days is not held in cash, but in properties, shares, football clubs and arworks - ask the Russian oligarchs, or various kleptocrats from all over who have bought properties in London for huge prices.

Of course, I assume such wealth could be taxed - in theory - but with Rishi Sunak now ensconced as a member of the UK's rich list, somehow I don't see that happening any time soon.

(I agree with your principles, naturally.)"

Yes, as a society or culture, we don't seem to be willing or able to tax the tremendous agglomerations of wealth that our economic system produces in anything like an equitable way - this was one f the points Piketty's best-selling book made, wasn't it? I haven't read it so perhaps I have that wrong.

But perhaps Tam's point is that such relatively straightforward, physical and therefore easily countable forms of wealth accumulation - land, gold - would be easier to tax than convoluted investment schemes, slush funds, etc, etc. Though of course the political will do to so would still be required.

[AB76]

Tam wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend (money) early in the cycle, so other people would be employed to generate im..."

Corbusier was quite close to the Vichy system in WW2, seemed to have no qualms accepting jobs, some of which were continuations of his 1930s plans such as re-designs for the city of Algiers but thankfully never came to fruition

[AB76]

Berkley wrote: "AB76 wrote: "
Greenfairy mentioned Dune, i watched the new film in two parts, while the first hour was an impressive rendering of the book, i found the second half, after the fall of House Altreide..."

i guess i was basing my observations on the novel berkley, where i feel Villeneuve was faithful in so many ways, visually the first hour is as good as any sci-fi that came before it. The danger with Hollywood is they supply such a solid supporting cast, where everyone meets or tops their ability but then cast the "stars" to young, inexperienced actors. In Lynchs unfairly mocked 1984 film, the character of Paul was better portrayed and Kyle Maclachlan had much better range as the young Altredes

[AB76]

Berkley wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I see... unfortunately, most wealth these days is not held in cash, but in properties, shares, football clubs and arworks - ask the Russian oligarchs, or various kleptocrats fro..."

i point to the "right turn" of the late 1970s when the neo-liberals started to win the ears of the powerful in the Anglo-world, Thatcher and Reagen were in tandem architects of this. Public ownership faded fast and private companies that syphoned profits off to shareholders gained control of almost all the great public services.

The result is this bizarre dogma of low taxes and low investment, letting the rich who stand alone get richer and the poorest who cannot do so get poorer.

The chimera of private sector efficiency is one of the most damning results of this, with weakened unions, hire and fire policies made easier and a world of precarious jobs that let the Tories in this country claim "work pays", when possibly 75% of the new jobs they crow about are as precarious as a share cropper in the 1930s

[giveusaclue]

Reading the second in Stuart Macbride's Logan McRae series, makes me very glad that the UK does not have nearly so many serial killers as crime novels would suggest!

[Tam]

AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend (money) early in the cycle, so other people would be employed to..."

Le Corb would have taken on work for the devil I suspect, if he had been up for employing him! But that doesn't mean that Le Corb wasn't up to having some interesting ideas...

[AB76]

Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "This was to keep it active within the community, as there would be an incentive to spend (money) early in the cycle, so other people would b..."

fascinating architect, have read a few of his books and love his ideas. i recommend "poeisie sur alger", a short lovely study of Algiers

[MK]

AB76 wrote: "Berkley wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I see... unfortunately, most wealth these days is not held in cash, but in properties, shares, football clubs and arworks - ask the Russian oligarchs, or various..."

Fiona Hill's memoir is also a polemic of sorts - There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century about leveling in society. She does cover much and seeing Thatcher and Reagan noted above reminded me that there is much to ponder from her book. (Of course there are a few juicy bits about Trump and Putin, too.)

[FrancesBurgundy]

Just to assuage my guilt, I'm coming here to say that I haven't got very far with Clifton Fadiman's Reading I've Liked, as mentioned by Anne in her intro, but I've decided to go through it in parallel with my other reading and mention here any authors Mr Fadiman liked, and what I thought about his choices.

For a start, he recommends Madame Curie, a biography of the great Marie Curie by her daughter Eve. The snippet he gives shows Marie working in a damp shed 'distilling' radium by hand from barrowloads of pitchblende. I'd definitely read that book if it came my way.

Then I read a two page short story 'Entrance Fee' by Alexander Woollcott (who he?). An easy read about soldiers and a high-class prostitute. Mr Fadiman's comment about 'erotica' is that it is 'an inferior form of literature suitable only to very young men and women, and very old men and women'.

Then 'Putzi' by Ludwig Bemelmans, a short story about a foetus. Nuff said.

Then I tried some of James Thurber's 'My Life and Hard Times'. Not really for me I'm afraid even though my father was forever quoting that, and The Day the Dam Broke. I know I get my love of reading from him, but I think our preferences are just a bit different!

[Tam]

I have finished, and enjoyed my SF romp 'The Doors Of Eden' by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It was just right for my enforced 'waiting' times at Churchill hospital in Oxford, over the past few weeks. It is much lighter of note than the last one of his, that I sThe Doors of Edentarted reading, 'Children of Time', a few years back. I gave up on that one about half-way through. Mostly as I couldn't identify with the description of the evolution of spiders into super intelligent beasties in a scientific experiment gone wrong... or maybe I'm just not that keen of spiders, or the book was a bit on the dour side?...

In 'The Doors of Eden' it is as if he passed himself a note saying 'lighten up a bit', and had decided to have some fun. So, the characters have been drawn, as if by numbers, a bit, for a modern 'woke' novel. So you have to have the 'team' of trans/black/lesbian/straight/, (and of course the requisite villain, doing his dastardly stuff by subverting the global financial system, and of course going into parallel worlds, and subverting their economic systems as well) to form a cross-sectional group of 'actors' attempting to co-operate, (or not, in some cases!) with competing alien interests and attempting to stop a possible 'universal catastrophe' across these worlds. And just over the event horizon.... (Sorry I couldn't resist slipping that one in, The event horizon is not in the book, I'm just having some fun with myself!...)

There is a lot of back referencing to Earth's paleontological history. I presume based on real 'earth-based' scientific knowledge. I did wonder on a couple of occasions if he was being a bit slap-dash as he occasionally seemed to randomly change the supposed sex given to some of the alien cultural protagonists, but it did occur to me that he might well be just having some fun, at the expense of some of those caught up in the current 'contentious' 'trans' debate on self-identifying into a different genders, just by saying you are what you want to be. And hence some of this group making claims of access to new 'spaces', that were previously held by other differently identifying 'groups'. But that is one microcosm of the larger themes of the book in many ways... That is the difficult questions, and possible consequences, that might arise, from the attempted colonisation of differently evolved 'parallel' worlds, and the unknown possible destruction of 'everything' that this might entail.

To me there is an increasing osmosis between the worlds of what used to be classic old world of S/F which used to be mostly led by futuristic ideas about scientific/technological issues in human experience to the more recent worlds of fantasy fiction. I'm not that keen on the fantasy fiction side of things so a slight shake of the head of disapproval from me. But Adrian keeps enough real-life scientific questions/conundrums feeding into the mix somehow, that it doesn't impede the story, and it does come across that he has been having some fun with himself, and others, in the process. It ends on a curiously 'old hippyish' note as well, so I'm not one to object to that side of things... being a bit of an old hippy myself...

I'd put the little icon of the book in, if I knew how to do that...

[Bill]

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Then I read a two page short story 'Entrance Fee' by Alexander Woollcott (who he?)."

Sic transit gloria mundi.

If that's the story I'm thinking of, Fadiman sets an extremely low bar for erotica, though I suppose that, etymologically, any story featuring a prostitute is pornographic.

[FrancesBurgundy]

Bill wrote: "FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Then I read a two page short story 'Entrance Fee' by Alexander Woollcott (who he?)."

Sic transit gloria mundi."

Well I know who he is/was now thank you. Is he very well known in the US?

[Georg]

Could everybody here please give an uptick for Andy's appeal to the Guardian on WWR?

[Bill]

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Well I know who he is/was now thank you. Is he very well known in the US?"

I guess few people nowadays would recognize the name, except for those who have made a study of popular and particularly middlebrow US culture of the 1920s-40s.

He may be best known as one of the Algonquin Round Table wits, though Dorothy Parker (and maybe Robert Benchley) are now better-known. As I recall, he is mentioned in Harpo Marx' memoirs, Harpo Speaks! and, dressed for his role as radio's Town Crier, he appears on the cover of The Making of Middlebrow Culture, where he is discussed alongside Clifton Fadiman.

I have a copy of the 700+ page The Portable Woollcott, which is where I read that story. It was issued a few years after his death, and went out of print, probably not many years afterward.

You also mentioned Ludwig Bemelmans, who remains known for the Madeline series, but deserves notice as a comic writer; Dirty Eddie, out-of-print for most if not all of my lifetime, is the funniest Hollywood novel I've read.

[Bill]

I hadn't realized until today that Arthur Conan Doyle and Richard Wagner share a May 22 birthday, 46 years apart.

[scarletnoir]

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "...he recommends Madame Curie, a biography of the great Marie Curie by her daughter Eve. The snippet he gives shows Marie working in a damp shed 'distilling' radium by hand from barrowloads of pitchblende. I'd definitely read that book if it came my way.."

Anyone visiting Paris and with an interest in Science really should visit the wonderful Musée Curie, which retains Madame Curie's last office and laboratory in the original building... fascinating:

https://artsandculture.google.com/par...

[MK]

I should be doing something else, but I am listening to Otto Penzler talk about spies and collecting books generally on this podcast - https://spybrary.com/otto-penzler-spy...

It looks as if it's free to listen - and I say Well Worth It!

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "...private companies that syphoned profits off to shareholders gained control of almost all the great public services.

The result is this bizarre dogma of low taxes and low investment, letting the rich who stand alone get richer and the poorest who cannot do so get poorer."

Quite so... and to link this back to books, I was surprised to see that Jeremy Hunt (yes, that one!) has just published a book in which he gives his thoughts on how avoidable deaths could be eliminated in the NHS... it has been reviewed in the 'Guardian' by Dr. Rachel Clarke, who notes among other things:

What is most disappointing from a frontline perspective is Hunt’s failure to match his fine words on candour with action. I write as someone who this year has seen too many patients dying in misery to count. They’ve died on trolleys in the corridors of overwhelmed hospitals. Of cancers that should have been diagnosed months ago. In their own blood or excrement because the nurses are run ragged. In ambulances trapped outside jam-packed A&Es. The list goes on and on. Avoidable, ghastly, inexcusable deaths, the result not of medical error, but of a system so defunded and understaffed by the government that it is doomed to fall short of what patients deserve.

Anyone wishing to further line Hunt's already well-stuffed pockets is invited, therefore, to buy Zero: Eliminating Preventable Harm and Tragedy in the Nhs

I suspect more of you will be interested in reading Dr Clarke's review:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

[scarletnoir]

Tam wrote: "I have finished, and enjoyed my SF romp 'The Doors Of Eden' by Adrian Tchaikovsky...
I'd put the little icon of the book in, if I knew how to do that."

Tam, it's easy - above the box where you type your comment is a link marked 'add book/author'. Click on that, and you then need to type in the book's name, then click 'search'... beneath, you can either choose a 'link' to the book or to the 'cover' - tick the one you want, then click 'Add':

[Robert]

The library's new bookshelf had unusual variety last week. One was Peter Longerich's Wannsee.

I had heard of the Wannsee Conference during the Second World War, but knew little about it. It was an essential link in the Holocaust.
This book is short and technical. The story is known from a typewritten summary prepared by Eichmann, one of history's great villains. This summary was not known until after the Nuremberg Trials were completed, so none of the principal defendants was confronted with it.
The location was a villa near Pottsdam, purchased by the Nazis for meetings and recreation. Heydrich, an SS General and Himmler's right-hand man, summoned a number of men for a meeting in January 1942. The participants, like Heydrich, were powerful deputies, not heads of regions, and included none of the powerful police bosses except Heydrich himself.
The devil was in the details. There was a good deal of discussion of "half Jews," a category invented by Nazi bureaucrats, which even Heydrich found tedious. Other points concerned deportations, no longer needed in Croatia for sinister reasons. However, the essential points appear only at the end of the summary. A man named Buhler, deputy boss of the General Government (the German-ruled area of what had been central Poland), stated that the Final Solution should begin in the territory he administered. No large amount of transport would be needed.
This was only a link in the chain, though an important one. Hitler, Rosenberg, and Goebbels had already alluded to Hitler's "prophecy" regarding punishment of the Jews if there was another world war. The major lines of policy had been laid down; Heydrich proposed mass deportation, but only after the war; now Dr. Frank, formerly Hitler's lawyer, now the ruler of millions, was ready to push the policy into action.
This took place after the invasion of Russia and Hitler's declaration of war on the United States. The most destructive phase of the war, already begun in June 1941, was to involve millions of unarmed civilians.

[Veufveuve]

Happy personal and familial birthdays to CCC and Scarlet. 100! In a neat piece of symmetry (or something) it was my wife's 50th on Friday and we've had a very enjoyable weekend of low key festivities.

But that meant little to no reading. Despite making a good start last weekend my progress on Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian" has not been quite as I might have wished. It wasn't my choice in the bookstore, and I had my doubts, but I have been enjoying it immensely. Hadrian's "voice" was so distinctive and so strongly present from the very first page that I was I pulled in immediately. I love the air of solemnity and melacholy too.

I notice AB's discussion of Dumas, Mauritius, the Caribbean, and sugar. Those with a subscription may have seen that the NYT ran a very substantial series of essays over the weekend on the debt France exacted from Haiti after that nation secured its liberty. I was glad to see it published, and in such depth, but was also taken aback by how heavily the Times was hyping this as its own, previously unknown discovery. Historians have been researching this topic for decades. Unsurprisingly, history Twitter is both glad to see this work published and deeply frustrated at the lack of acknowledgement for the work of historians. Some journalists are retorting that historians shouldn't write such boring, unappealing work. Personally, I think many historians write very well for mainstream press/media when given the opportunity.

[AB76]

Veufveuve wrote: "Happy personal and familial birthdays to CCC and Scarlet. 100! In a neat piece of symmetry (or something) it was my wife's 50th on Friday and we've had a very enjoyable weekend of low key festiviti..."

The real significance for me is the legacy of independence for Haiti, the only slave majority island to rebel and secure its independence. That legacy is of constant poverty, exploitation and neglect by the international community since the early 19c, though better in the late 20thc. A sugar producing giant, dominating the carribean sugar trade by almost 5 to 1, faded and was overtaken by much smaller islands like Jamaica and eventually Cuba. All that potential wasted, almost as if it was punishment for rebelling....very sad

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "The library's new bookshelf had unusual variety last week. One was Peter Longerich's Wannsee.

I had heard of the Wannsee Conference during the Second World War, but knew little about it. It was a..."

a few years ago i was interested to study the attendees and among them a number of civil servants, which shouldnt suprise me but did. the crucial enablers of state policy in Nazi Germany were its civil service and lawyers. Kant and his concept of duty rears its head here, where does duty become corrupted, when in the service of evil

[Lass]

@Robert. Re the Wannsee conference, there was a moving and powerful play on the T V in 2001, called Conspiracy. Terrific cast, including Kenneth Branagh, and so many others. Though hard to watch at times, nevertheless an outstanding drama.

[Georg]

AB76 wrote: the crucial enablers of state policy in Nazi Germany were its civil service and lawyers. Kant and his concept of duty rears its head here, where does duty become corrupted, when in the service of evil

The civil service only exists in order to implement state policy.
Kant???
Nobody who wasn't a fervent Nazi would have been promoted within the civil service. Do you really think these people had any moral values that could have been corrupted? They were not in the service of evil. They were part of it.

[scarletnoir]

Veufveuve wrote: "Happy personal and familial birthdays to CCC and Scarlet. 100! In a neat piece of symmetry (or something) it was my wife's 50th on Friday and we've had a very enjoyable weekend of low key festiviti..."

Thanks for that... and happy birthday to your wife... I'd love to be 'only' 50 again!

[[deleted user]]

Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams (2019)

This received quite a lot of attention when it came out. I heard an interview of the author, who is a black female journalist living in London, and she came over as thoughtful, self-deprecating, and fun. She was a columnist for a time on The G. I picked up a PB copy when I saw it recently.

A fictional black female journalist living in London is on the slide personally and professionally. Her skin colour is central. Her dating experiences, mainly with white men, are awful, and I don’t just mean the conversation was dull. Her descent is rapid and gets worse in every way. In the end she blurts it out: “I can’t have any love in my life that isn’t completely f**ked by my fear that I’ll be rejected just for being born me.”

So, the story cuts to the heart of life as many live it today. It is funnier than it sounds (e.g. a comical definition of a mainstream millennial). There is sex of a kind that I would not call normal but nowadays perhaps is.

I don’t think I need to analyze it more than that. A telling and vivid story, at least for me, lodges in the head as a kind of hard fact. It becomes a part of my mental landscape.

The writing style, on the other hand, is so everyday it sounds as if it was composed on a phone while going to work on the bus, and it is meant to, because a lot is in text format. I get that a contemporary story may best be told in a contemporary way, and it had me reading to the 330th and final page to find out what happened. Four publishing companies competed in an auction to buy it. Still, one such book is enough for me for quite some time.

[scarletnoir]

To @AB76 and @Georg, regarding 'duty' - as I wrote in a recent review of , one protagonist (who I suspect expresses the author's own opinion) argues that:

torturers have individual responsibility, and should not be allowed to fall back on the "I was only obeying orders" excuse.

That also is an argument which applies to the architects of the so-called 'final solution', IMHO.

[giveusaclue]

Lass wrote: "@Robert. Re the Wannsee conference, there was a moving and powerful play on the T V in 2001, called Conspiracy. Terrific cast, including Kenneth Branagh, and so many others. Though hard to watch at..."

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/

I saw the film and it was absolutely chilling. Mind you Heydrich came to a deservedly nasty end shortly after. Unfortunately, many people lost their lives in revenge.

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "To @AB76 and @Georg, regarding 'duty' - as I wrote in a recent review of , one protagonist (who I suspect expresses the author's own opinion..."

for sure, the Russians in Ukraine are now using the obeying orders excuse......i always admire the french civil servant in WW2 who slowly resisted using his carding system for census that he had been designing when he realised the Vichy-Nazi authorities planned to use it to record the Jewish population

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%...

[Georg]

scarletnoir wrote: torturers have individual responsibility, and should not be allowed to fall back on the "I was only obeying orders" excuse.

That was the main point made by the prosecution in the Nuremberg trials. Ever since no independent court would even think of contesting it.

For once I do not really understand what you intend to say.
Just in case you missed my point: it is unrealistic to expect people who have no moral values to start with might find some on their way up the greasy pole.

Ironically those who were accused in these trials could have (omitting the framework of ethics it rests on) quoted Kant's definition of "duty" in their defense: the necessity to act in a way that respects the law.

[Tam]

Georg wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: torturers have individual responsibility, and should not be allowed to fall back on the "I was only obeying orders" excuse.

That was the main point made by the prosecution in th..."

That seems like a very 'black and white' view Georg, at least to me. My experience of human kind is that we start out, as baby's with no moral structures in ourselves, just preprogrammed instincts such as sucking milk from the breast etc... so all our moral values are learnt. In law we consider (ages differ in different countries) that up until a certain age children are not responsible for their actions, even if they kill someone else. So morality is a product of education... and socialisation... and age...

But what if you are deprived of one or the other, or both, how responsible can you be made to be, when you lack access to everything that might provide you with a moral conscience? But as you so rightly say, it is often the well educated that commit the most heinous actions, so education alone means very little.

So its a very long grey sort of wedge to me, and it is highly debatable if there is a 'right' spot on the responsibility/culpability curve. The law is a very imperfect backstop, as it defends already established interests, such as, once upon a time slavery was legal. It took quite a lot of 'illegality' to abolish slavery, or establish women's rights... Its equally plausible for the 'law' to be changed, perfectly legally, (within a democracy even) in order to allow for far greater (immoral' to me!) exploitation...

It is so complicated I really cant get on top of it at all, but I suspect that there are a lot of people who would back-down, against their own 'conscience', when given an order, by a more powerful figure, with or without guns involved. That is how power protects the powerful, it perpetuates itself through fear.

You might as well ask how many people are prepared to die for their 'beliefs' alone? Well there would be quite a few, and we call them martyrs, (they can be both political and religious) but most people wouldn't I think, some would rebel a bit, perhaps, and most would just 'hope' for better times, just around the corner...

Oh rant over with... Its just your model seemed a bit simple to me...

[AB76]

Current reading:

Really enjoying a modern Soanish novel by Juan Marse entitled The Snares of Memory (2016)

Its a witty and eloquent novel about a murder in 1949, which the narrator is researching for a film script. He sits and talks with the murderer, ghosts of the Franco-ist pass emerge and its impressive in its scope. I would say, yet again, it encompasses all thats good about modern literature from Europe and the paucity/lack of quality of their British equivalents

Dumas spins masterful plots in Georges(1843), its refreshing to read this style of novel and its historical context.

The Tsars Foreign Faiths has moved after 80 pages or so into the missionary work of the Orthodox church and the aggressive re-incorporation of Uniates in Polish Russia(mostly now Ukraine) back into the Orthodox fold, which happened again after WW2

[MK]

Down the rabbit hole of the net, I found a 'summer read' especially for dog lovers. Love, Clancy: A Dog's Letters Home . And one get an Australian perspective to boot.

[CCCubbon]

Veufveuve wrote: "Happy personal and familial birthdays to CCC and Scarlet. 100! In a neat piece of symmetry (or something) it was my wife's 50th on Friday and we've had a very enjoyable weekend of low key festiviti..."

Thank you VV. Ah 50 lovely age (aren’t they all really). Remember my present then, a combined one from family of a beehive complete with bees!
Quite an adventure getting all dressed up in the protective clothing for the first time. We soon came to learn how the pitch of the bees buzz becomes higher when the get annoyed - like a high pitched frantic whine - they don’t like after shave smell.
We kept them for several years investing in a second hive later and sited them up alongside the chickens who didn’t seem to mind them flying overhead..
Extracting the honey turned the whole kitchen into a sticky mess. I did talk to both the bees and the chickens.
Eventually they swarmed away and we didn’t replace, let them go. Oddly a few nights later the fox came and killed my remaining chickens so I lost both, he had not bothered while the bees were there.

[Lass]

@clue….thank you, chilling was the word I was searching for re Conspiracy.

[Georg]

Tam wrote: "Georg wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: torturers have individual responsibility, and should not be allowed to fall back on the "I was only obeying orders" excuse.

That was the main point made by the pro..."

You charge me with "black and white" thinking. It will take me a day or two to sort a lot of thoughts in order to answer. I am always up for a challenge....