What are we reading? 7 November 2022

[CCCubbon]

Early one spring morning down by the lake we found ourselves in the middle of a storm of swifts catching insects . It looked as if they had just arrived after a long flight. Amazing moment, never to be forgotten.

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "The death of young newly elected leader Patrice Lumumba has been laid at the doors of the CIA..."

I was quite young at the time, but remember the name and that there had been an insurrection - and that the Belgians were involved in some way (according to Wikipedia, they have since apologised for their role in his execution). I didn't know that the USA/CIA had been involved as well.

The other well-known death linked to the Congo conflict was that of Dag Hammarskjöld, the Secretary General of the United Nations. His plane crashed when "en route to negotiate a cease-fire between United Nations Operation in the Congo forces and Katangese troops under Moise Tshombe. His Douglas DC-6 airliner SE-BDY crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Hammarskjöld perished as a result of the crash, as did all of the 15 other passengers..." (Wikipedia)

The crash was variously attributed to pilot error or to hostile fire, with the CIA blaming the KGB. Others have blamed the CIA, MI6, various mining interests, and the Katanga air force... so, no shortage of theories. Who knows where the truth lies?

[scarletnoir]

Storm wrote: "Well, I received an absolutely fascinating book today. Translating Style: a Literary Approach to Translation, by Tim Parks. Parks has written novels himself, won prizes for his literary translation..."

Very interesting... I have from time to time posted short passages translated from French here... I am no professional, but have a notion (or theory) that one can have a decent stab at translating works where you feel on the writer's wavelength, whereas an attempt to translate something you 'don't get' would end in failure no matter how precise the individual words might be conveyed. At times, you have to try to recreate the 'feeling' of the original as opposed to a literal version, which is why I'm sceptical about the Pevear and Volokhonsky method for Russian to English. As I understand it, one writes a literal word-for-word version, and the other then puts it into 'proper English' - but I suspect the first step will inevitably lose something. (To be fair, I haven't read any of their translations so my gut feeling may be wrong.)

The book you mention may not work for me as I have no Italian - if such a book exists for French-English, I'd certainly take a look!

[Georg]

Russell wrote: "Man of Straw – Heinrich Mann (1918)

A novel of late 19C Germany that threads together the decline of the Liberals of ’48 and the rise of two bitterly opposed groups, the Patriots enthralled by the..."

Hessling is perfectly captured in the original title.

Ein "Untertan" in German parlance is somebody who kicks those below him and grovels to those above him.

[scarletnoir]

Georg wrote: "Ein "Untertan" in German parlance is somebody who kicks those below him and grovels to those above him."

Ah? Just like my old head of department, then! (A total bastard.)

When I think of it, I'm not sure there is one word for that in English, so it should definitely be adopted, like 'Schadenfreude' - IMO.

[[deleted user]]

Georg wrote: "Russell wrote: "Man of Straw – Heinrich Mann (1918)...

Hessling is perfectly captured in the original title.

Ein "Untertan" in German parlance is somebody who kicks those below him and grovels to those above him.

Spot on. Do the dictionaries suggest a derivation?

reply | flag

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[Georg]

Russell wrote: "Georg wrote: "Russell wrote: "Man of Straw – Heinrich Mann (1918)...

Hessling is perfectly captured in the original title.

Ein "Untertan" in German parlance is somebody who kicks those below him ..."

No, there is no derivation (if I understand the meaning of derivation correctly).

"Untertan" translates as "subject".

That is the denotation.

I might be wrong, but I think the connotation is indeed tied, or owed, to Mann's novel.
His portrait of a man, titled "Der Untertan".

[AB76]

Russell wrote: "Man of Straw – Heinrich Mann (1918)

A novel of late 19C Germany that threads together the decline of the Liberals of ’48 and the rise of two bitterly opposed groups, the Patriots enthralled by the..."

glad you enjoyed it Russell....another example of the brilliance of german literature!

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The death of young newly elected leader Patrice Lumumba has been laid at the doors of the CIA..."

I was quite young at the time, but remember the name and that there had been an insur..."

i think Hammerskjold had rubbed quite a few reactionary governments up the wrong way, was keen on establishing independence for africa and was killed by intelligence services of South Africa, in collusion with shadowy others, including the mining companies that made so much money out of Katanga. Ndola, in North Rhodesia was part of the copperbelt and a region that was close to Katanga and had links between mercenaries and intelligence services

[giveusaclue]

Yesterday I finished reading

Having just read the previous two books in the Gabriel Allon series, which I found sadly disappointing, this one restored my faith. Allon has now retired to Venice, the home city of his wife Chiara with their twins, she to run an art gallery and he to work at his original profession as an art restorer. Naturally things don't quite work out like that he and he is drawn into investigating a worldwide multi-billion $ art fraud network. Concentration required at times, but well worth the 4* I gave it.

I have now move on to an new author for me



I think it may be a bit formulaic but we will see.

[Andy]

scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "A very pleasant day here in the Lakes which started with a pair of Cumbrians finishing the job at the MCG, and then by finishing what I am sure will be one of my books of the year, sit..."

I am similar when it comes to true crime SN, but this did win the Portico Prize, which is what persuaded me..

[Andy]

Just done with Cormac McCarthy's new book, The Passenger

I really struggled with it.

It’s as if the author has transitioned from the southern gothic writing he is famous for to the insipid style of the dirge that is current contemporary American fiction.

Gone is the legendary violence that gave his work a trademark, gone also is the sharp snappy brutal dialogue to be replaced by at least twice as many blunt, and frankly just too damned nice, words.

Having done the groundwork for a decent mystery in the first 50 pages of the book he takes off on a surreal and illogical tangent. The second storyline of his sister’s suicide I found baffling. That may have been the intention, but like it’s entirety, it is overwritten.

I feel like a party-pooper. This is McCarthy after all.

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "Yesterday I finished reading

Having just read the previous two books in the Gabriel Allon series, which I found sadly disappointing, this one rest..."

I'm just finishing The Cellist which I have also found a bit disappointing. And I've got the next one, so I'm glad to hear he seems to be back on form :)

And I've read 2 more Petros Markaris: Le Séminaire des assassins and Mort aux hypocrites which I enjoyed as usual.

I've just started Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes, a memoir ... that I'm taking a bit of time to get into.

[Andy]

Happier to report though that I just read the first story from Robert Aickman's Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories, called The Swords

This was absolutely tremendous. Very Harry Crews in its incorporation of carnivals and 'freak-shows'..

A young traveling salesman, perhaps 16, is bored when working away from home and goes looking for adventure. He stumbles upon a decrepit town carnival that has long seen better days. Hidden away, he finds a side-show that becomes an infatuation: men paying to stab a woman with swords.

There was a burly chap standing on the low platform, giving the spiel, in a pretty rough delivery. He had tight yellow curls, the colour of cheap lemonade but turning grey, and a big red face, with a splay nose, and very dark red lips. The ears didn’t seem exactly opposite one another.

On the chap’s left a girl lay spread out facing us in an upright canvas chair, as faded and battered as everything else in the outfit. She was dressed up like a French chorus, in a tight and shiny black thing, cut low, and black fishnet stockings, and those shiny black shoes with super high heels that many men go for in such a big way. But the effect was not particularly sexy, all the same. The different bits of costume had all seen better days, like everything else, and the girl herself looked more sick than spicy.

Strange as of course it is, it has a meaning - a boy coming of age and experiencing something like sex for the first time, but dreading it, and indulging in it because its what everyone else does, rather than any drive from within.
The woman is as inexpressive and impassive as the boy.
Aickman is making a statement here, whether it is about the act of prostitution, or the blindly copying the behaviour of elders without querying it.

It was just the first story, so good things to come I'm sure..

[Bill]

Gpfr wrote: "I'm just finishing The Cellist which I have also found a bit disappointing. And I've got the next one, so I'm glad to hear he seems to be back on form :)"

Ha! I just saw The Cellist in the local Little Free Library and commented to my wife, "Sounds like a book for me, except they forgot the apostrophe."

I intended to look it up on GR, but here it is mentioned on eTLS. I just read the rather lengthy summary which doesn't say anything about a 'cellist, and begin to suspect that the title refers to some assassin's code-name or some such thing, rather than a musician.

The summary does mention "a private intelligence service controlled by a childhood friend of the Russian president ... using KGB-style 'active measures' to undermine the West from within. Known as the Haydn Group ...". Sounds like they should be taken on by a rival organization called the Wolf Gang.

[Lass]

Re the death of Patrice Lumumba, I think I first became aware of it when I read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible many years ago. In such ways we discover history and world events.

[Gpfr]

Bill wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "I'm just finishing The Cellist"

"I just read the rather lengthy summary which doesn't say anything about a 'cellist, and begin to suspect that the title refers to some assassin's code-name or some such thing, rather than a musician. .."

No, there is actually a musician, a cellist :).
Like my Oxford dictionary, I privilege the spelling without the apostrophe 😏. Then I went to look at my Faber & Faber biography of Jacqueline du Pré — I didn't think there were any apostrophes there and indeed there aren't.

[AB76]

Lass wrote: "Re the death of Patrice Lumumba, I think I first became aware of it when I read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible many years ago. In such ways we discover history and world events."

i think its a pivotol moment where the post-war american thirst for regime charge started to become endemic, following the events in Iran about 8years earlier. The obvious implications of the reptilian Allen Dulles remarking "we need to remove Lumumba" are clear for all to see.

The root of all the issues in the Congo Crisis was western anti-communist desires to loot or retain the immense mineral wealth which was successful and remains in place till this day.

I read some interesting articles on the Belgian Congo in WW2, it stayed with the Allies even as Belgium fell in 1940 and its resources were vital for the Allies(including components for the Manhattan Project). The Belgian "Force Publique"(colonial army) fought well in Africa during WW2, fighting in Eritrea and Ethiopia.

[MK]

I've been thumbing through my 'For Later' items at the library. I listed them there because I had run out of hold room. I came across this which may be of current interest - In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism .

[giveusaclue]

Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Yesterday I finished reading

Having just read the previous two books in the Gabriel Allon series, which I found sadly disappoi..."

I have one Markaris Deadline in Athens on my digital tbr pile.

Excuse my ignorance but can someone explain the comments about cellist apostrophe, I seem to be missing something here.🙈

[Bill]

giveusaclue wrote: "Excuse my ignorance but can someone explain the comments about cellist apostrophe, I seem to be missing something here.🙈"

'Cellist is a contraction of violoncellist.

It's my belief that the neglect of apostrophes in words like 'cello and Hallowe'en is the reason that they show up incorrectly in other instances.

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "explain the comments about cellist apostrophe..."

The original name is violoncello, shortened to 'cello / cello, so the apostrophe represents the missing part of the word. It's not widely used, unless it's different in the US.
In French, it's violoncelle and violoncelliste, no abbreviating.

[Bill]

Gpfr wrote: "It's not widely used, unless it's different in the US."

If anything, I'm sure things are even slacker here in the US, but some of us insist on sticking with the Old Ways.

[giveusaclue]

Thank you everyone for your explanation, I will try to use it in future when I write about 'cellos. Not 'cello's😀

[Bill]

Gpfr wrote: "No, there is actually a musician, a cellist :)."

And I was imagining a scenario where the operatives of the Haydn Group are identified only by the generic names of instrumentalists ... with the deadliest ones named for string quartet players.

[Gpfr]

Bill wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "No, there is actually a musician, a cellist :)."

And I was imagining a scenario where the operatives of the Haydn Group are identified only by the generic names of instrumentalists ....."

That could be good!

[CCCubbon]

I finishedThe Dark by Sharon Bolton finding it an unusual book. I have read most of the Lacey Flint series, they’re not bad. This one - given the title- led me to expect it to be rather grisly although I hadn’t bothered to read the blurb. However it turned out to be about cyber crime and the dark web, how clever use of the internet can agitate some people into losing control, stirring up the frustrations of some men against women.
Very cleverly done, almost believable and I learned a bit more about computers along the way. Don’t want to give anything away so will not say more.

[Andy]

Just finished The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros

The winner of the Welsh Book of the Year in 2019 (translated from the Welsh by the author herself) is written for young adults, but will be appreciated by older readers also. Young adults is such a broad category, I would be more specific, and say anyone from 12 years upwards.

It’s a bleak post-apocalyptic piece that supposes the world had a chance to reset, it champions resilience and rebirth. It doesn’t fall into that huge category of apocalyptic fiction that speculates a desperate future of dark pessimism, ‘we’re doomed’..

14 year old Dylan and his mother live just off the Caernarfon coast and have survived ‘The End’, nuclear war. Eight years on and the old world of screens and associated technology has been forgotten. They see few other survivors and are left alone to appreciate their environment and more simple entertainment, such as books.

It’s a refreshing novel, simply written and ideal for young teenagers.

[Andy]

CCCubbon wrote: "I finishedThe Dark by Sharon Bolton finding it an unusual book. I have read most of the Lacey Flint series, they’re not bad. This one - given the title- led me to expect it to be rather grisly alth..."

Just checked CC, and I’ve actually read 10 of Bolton’s novels.. so I guess I’m a fan..
This is her most recent I am guessing, and I haven’t read anything by her for a couple of years now, so may take it on.

That ‘grisly’ aspect that you speak about appeals to me, you won’t be surprised. She flirts with horror on occasions I think. I hoped here, that the clue is in the title, but I must admit, cyber crime appeals less..

How many of hers have you read? I’ll guess quite a few, and do you have a favourite?
My favourite Flint is Like This, For Ever, and stand alone Daisy in Chains.

[AB76]

I have returned to The Luftwaffe War Diaries after reading the 1939-41 section last year

I have been pitched straight into the Battle of Crete(memorably described in fiction by Evelyn Waugh in the Sword of Honour Triology), with a huge Luftwaffe operation underway to supply enough planes to carry the paratroops(unlike in UK, in WW2, the paratroops were Luftwaffe, not army).

The first day saw fierce resistance by Freyburgs Anglo-Allied troops, the German para's having some bad luck, losing many men and officers, including two Generals wounded. The real skill of Cajus Bekker, is the way he prepares the ground for the battles he describes, the use of luftwaffe records and the clarity on logistics..

[scarletnoir]

Andy wrote: "Just done with Cormac McCarthy's new book, The Passenger

I really struggled with it...I feel like a party-pooper. This is McCarthy after all."

From your last sentence, I assume you usually admire McCarthy... I have only read two of his books - No Country for Old Men - which was decent but ended on a downer (changed for the film version - no surprise there) and The Road.

Now, it was a mistake for me to read this. I don't care for apocalyptic fiction (or SF generally); I don't care for relentless pessimism... but that's what I got here. I decided then and there to never read another book by this author.

(I wonder if they twisted the ending for the film version?)

[MK]

giveusaclue wrote: "Thank you everyone for your explanation, I will try to use it in future when I write about 'cellos. Not 'cello's😀"

I hate to say it. but seeing 'cello reminded me I really should have some limoncello for the holidays. However, (insert eye roll here) I won't because I'm not going to Portland any time soon. (WA has lots of taxes on liquor probably because we have such crappy ways of taxing in the first place.)

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "Just done with Cormac McCarthy's new book, The Passenger

I really struggled with it...I feel like a party-pooper. This ..."

i loved The Road, over a decade ago,this was at a time when i was very wary of lauded modern authors and their novels but i found it so brilliant and consistently downbeat, i couldnt put it down. I didnt enjoy No Country for Old Men, as much.

i much prefer pessimistic novels, mixed with realism and a lack of certainty, i find they make me think and ponder on things and ask good questions of the human condition.

[Gpfr]

AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "Cormac McCarthy's new book..."

I liked The The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain a lot, but haven't felt inclined to read any other books by him.

[CCCubbon]

Andy wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I finishedThe Dark by Sharon Bolton finding it an unusual book. I have read most of the Lacey Flint series, they’re not bad. This one - given the title- led me to expect it to be r..."

I did like the Lacey Flint series and bought this one because it is the latest in the series. I was properly hooked with this one, sat up reading. It’s not sogory as say The Craftsman - there’s a sequel to that one just come out. I remember liking the one about the people in the hot air balloon, forget the title for the moment and The Dark I rate because it was unusual and I didn’t guess the solution. Had me fooled.
I don’t know very much about computers really but as happens found myself teaching basic stuff to get mature students started. The logic involved in formal specification was easier to wing because I didn’t actually have to touch a computer!

[MK]

Want to thumb through?

://hbswarehousesale.com/

3 days only!

[AB76]

Very interesting essay in P&P on the refugee situation in Britain from 1649-1660, the Protectorate era and the implications for the future spread of the empire

As we face the right wing horror at the idea of refugees crossing the channel in 2022, the article looks at how Protestant refugees were welcomed from the 1560s until the 1750s. Initially from the low countries where Catholic Spain threatened their existence, foward into the large Hugenot (French Calvinist) waves of emigration that hit a peak in the 1680s.

It is interesting to see commentary quoted where British observers remembered their own refuge in Holland during the rule of Bloody Mary and how this informed their view of the idea of safe refuge. There is study of ideals of "confessional" and "humanitarian" support for refugees and some do see opportunity to settle these new Protestants in Ireland and the Carribean. A Hugenot spy even suggests settling Hugenots and Jansenists in Jamaica(the Jansenists were seen as a proto-Protestant by Jesuits but importantly never became Protestants)

The essay ends with the darker side of what these influxes were doing to peoples in other parts of the Empire as the centuries moved foward. Alongside the Jewish, Walloon,Hugenot and other refugees admitted to Britain and its colonies, there was the huge displacement of first peoples, catholics and others, the empire was expelling or reducing one set of unwanted peoples, while encouraging the settling of desirables...

[Andy]

scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "Just done with Cormac McCarthy's new book, The Passenger

I really struggled with it...I feel like a party-pooper. This ..."

Usually is the word to choose SN.

I really didn't like The Road.
I haven't read No Country for Old Men, but really enjoyed The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain
and even more, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West.

[Andy]

CCCubbon wrote: "Andy wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I finishedThe Dark by Sharon Bolton finding it an unusual book. I have read most of the Lacey Flint series, they’re not bad. This one - given the title- led me to expe..."

Thanks for that CC. I think if you enjoyed it, from what you say, I think I will also..

[Andy]

Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry

Based on the true story of Carl Tanzler, this is a shocking, thought-provoking and exciting new horror that does what the best do, pushes the boundaries of the genre.

Set in the 1970s in Key West, Floida, a German doctor who had worked for the Nazis in his youth becomes infatuated with a much younger Cuban woman, who he is treating for tuberculosis. When she dies, the doctor refuses to accept it, and takes matters into his own hands.

Parry is from Yorkshire, and her work is a modern take on classic gothic fiction, and though the idea, Frankenstein-esque, is of course not new, her approach is from a different and refreshing angle.

There are (welcomed) moments of hideous unpleasantness, though in a lenghty finale Parry leaves her reader with plenty to contemplate; firstly that to what degree is beauty in the eye of the beholder, and a debate with more substance, what was the relevant law in the 1970s, what is the law now, and what should be the law..

Tanzler's case is far from being the only example of this sort of incident in history. Though it is probably the best known. Back in my youth, in our neighbourhood, a mother who lost a family member kept everything of her that was permitted at the time, the hair, teeth, fingernails, and used them to dress a doll to look like the deceased - and displayed it in a Wendy house in her garden.

[MK]

As a fan of the 'country house murder mystery' and not a great wine connisseur, I have often wondered about that time after dinner when the women left the dining table to the men, their cigars, and their port.

Never having tasted port, I've wondered about it. My local newspaper has seen fit to enlighten me. I wonder if any here have questions as well - https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-...

[[deleted user]]

MK wrote: "As a fan of the 'country house murder mystery' and not a great wine connisseur, I have often wondered about that time after dinner when the women left the dining table to the men, their cigars, and their port..."

That looks like an interesting piece, but the Seattle Times wouldn’t let me read it unless I unblocked my ad blockers. So I will just say that I enjoyed port occasionally as an after dinner drink…until I discovered Madeira. That is a magnificent wine, not especially sweet as it has tang to it, and consequently, so far as my palate is any judge of these things, the perfect accompaniment for cheese.

[Gpfr]

Russell wrote: "MK wrote: " I have often wondered about that time after dinner when the women left the dining table to the men, their cigars, and their port ..."
"That looks like an interesting piece, but the Seattle Times wouldn’t let me read it unless I unblocked my ad blockers."

Ah, I was able to read it with my ad blocker.

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "i much prefer pessimistic novels, mixed with realism."

Well, somehow I missed the 'realism' part of 'The Road' which (from memory) described a post-apocalyptic landscape (unexplained? or was it after a war?) where - again for unexplained reasons - people seemed to think things would get better if they could reach the sea, despite outbreaks of suicide and cannibalism along the way.

A bit like Tory Britain, in short.

You are dead right about the pessimism, though!

[FrancesBurgundy]

A vintage port is really delicious, and all sorts of port are very drinkable - madeira too Russell!

In a book I read recently one of the characters was teetotal but 'port didn't count'. It's actually pretty alcoholic but used to be drunk in small glasses. Though I had a great aunt who started to giggle after two sips. And I think my strict Methodist aunt and uncle eventually kept a bottle of sherry for guests.

But I was thinking more of the splitting up of males and females after dinner - withdrawing as it was called. 1) Correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought it was for a toilet break. For all I know the ladies may have continued tippling in the withdrawing room, though tea was more likely. And I read somewhere recently of one of the gents who stood up, post withdrawing, went to a cupboard and peed in the chamber pot there - it showed he was at home with the host apparently.

2) Re withdrawing room - now shortened to drawing room. This is generally the room used for best in a small house - used to be called the parlour where everything was covered in dust sheets and it was only used at Christmas. Well, MrB and I were obviously brought up in downmarket households because drawing room was too posh for us, and that room was always called the front room, with the same connotations of generally to be used for guests. The other day we had friends over for dinner (which our families would never have done of course) and on welcoming them in for a glass of vintage champagne we said 'Shall we go into the front room?' They were differently brought up from us and actually tittered at 'front room'. I still look on them as friends but I've learnt to watch my language with them. Any US contributors must think we're still in the Dark Ages.

[scarletnoir]

MK wrote: "I have often wondered about that time after dinner when the women left the dining table to the men, their cigars, and their port."

I first tasted port around 1967, at my hall of residence, where it was served with the Christmas dinner - disgusting stuff.

Never touched it again for 50 years or so, until a visit to Lisbon and a chance stop in a bar specialising in port just beneath the castle. The boss took time to explain all about the drink to us - the types include Tawny (a bit like sherry, oxidated and amber in colour) and ruby (not oxidated, deep red in colour). The prices vary enormously with quality - I prefer the ruby style but that doesn't keep once opened, so you 'have to' drink the bottle in no more than 3 days! It's brilliant if you spend enough to reach a good quality wine:

https://www.vivino.com/wine-news/the-...

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i much prefer pessimistic novels, mixed with realism."

Well, somehow I missed the 'realism' part of 'The Road' which (from memory) described a post-apocalyptic landscape (unexplained?..."

i guess for me realism concerns the actions of men or women in situations of extreme stress and isolation, as society breaks down, which can take part in a sci-fi world or London, or this ghastly tory era in the UK..lol

[AB76]

any quick wits guess who my avatar/profile pic is?

i think Andy will and Mach should too...

[giveusaclue]

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "A vintage port is really delicious, and all sorts of port are very drinkable - madeira too Russell!

In a book I read recently one of the characters was teetotal but 'port didn't count'. It's actua..."

You should have quoted Frankie Howard's titter ye not!

I call mine the living room which, if you think about it, is a bit silly because it isn't alive.

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "I call mine the living room which, if you think about it, is a bit silly because it isn't alive"

ah, but it's where you do your living!
Mine is the sitting room.