What are we reading? 21 November 2022

[scarletnoir]

Gpfr wrote: "I asked what his wife would do all the time while he was working. His answer was, "Oh, she'll be fine, she can go to the supermarket."!!

I used to be baffled (to put it mildly) around 20 years ago when contestants on quiz shows, asked about their hobbies, used to list 'shopping' as a possibility.

'Shopping', for me, entails buying things of which I have need. It's not something to do to pass the time. But hey - I've got (sort of) used to this brave new world...

[AB76]

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The splendid Luftwaffe Diaries a history of that heroic fighting force is reminding me daily how dangerous the Germans could have been with less reliance on Ady H and more on the exper..."

yes, thats it, i think what has impressed me is the clarity of its construction, its well laid out and translated. its not actually a "diary" of sorts, its more the story of the action and events of WW2 from the Luftwaffe official diaries, told as a normal history book would do it.

[AB76]

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "My books of 2022

Might change if i read anything awesome in the next 3 weeks but as it stands:

Best classic novel:
Either Southern Steel by Dymphna Cusack or ..."

in the balkans the islam-christian tensions are deep rooted but the actual form of Islam practised seems to have remained a very moderate Sunni version, probably the most relaxed in the world maybe outside Turkey(before Erdogun) and the soviet islamic republics.
We had a bosnian refugee at my sixth form in 1992 and he would regale me with the relaxed world of pre- civil war Sarajaevo. The Bosniaks a majority muslim people but laidback, open and tolerant
The Serbian approach to the Bosniak Muslims and Kosovans was certainly based on ancient emnities and i remember a docu on Mladic where he always referred to the enemy using derogatory anti-Islamic terms. If there were inter religious tensions within the Muslims of the Balkans (into Albania too), i havent read about them, though they have all been divorced from Ottoman rule for centuries now
Interestingly Kemal Attaturk was of partial Balkan descent and i think the Turks who were born in and spread accross this region were always well accepted by the Turks in Turkey proper.

[scarletnoir]

Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "A question:a common weed ..."

I'm not sure what answer you want here"

CC gave the answer in #293 and posted a photo. A plant I don't know at all."

Yes, I hadn't seen that when I posted a comment... FWIW, I found this on Wikipedia:

Equisetum (/ˌɛkwɪˈsiːtəm/; horsetail, snake grass, puzzlegrass) is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of ferns, which reproduce by spores rather than seeds.

so it seems that I wasn't exactly wrong to plump for 'ferns' - it's not clear to me whether these predated other types of fern or appeared contemporaneously.

[MK]

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "I asked what his wife would do all the time while he was working. His answer was, "Oh, she'll be fine, she can go to the supermarket."!!

I used to be baffled (to put it mildly) aroun..."

If the US depended on people like me to 'shop', we would be in the depths of depression. I know my younger times were very different from today, but instead of buying 'stuff', I put money in the bank - so to say - every month and now that is how I manage to stay afloat today.

[Gpfr]

AB76 wrote: "MK wrote: "I appreciate the Sunni/Shia details. I'm thinking there is a comparison with the Balkans since both came under the Ottoman Empire umbrella for so long...."

"in the balkans the islam-christian tensions are deep rooted but the actual form of Islam practised seems to have remained a very moderate Sunni version...

I've written before about Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey Into Muslim Europe by Tharik Hussain. Born in Bangladesh, the writer came to England as a child. The prejudice he encountered changed:

Where before I was told I didn't belong here because I was a 'Paki', now I was told I didn't belong here because I was a Muslim ... I would have to start making sense of all this hate and rejection that I knew my children would also encounter.

The Muslims of the Balkans seemed important to him because they were not immigrants, or converts, or "deemed foreign to Europe."
So with his wife and daughters he went on a trip round the western Balkans to find out about them.

[Bill]

Russell wrote: "Freud’s Wizard – Brenda Maddox (2006)

Another fine biography from BM, the story of Ernest Jones, a brilliant Welsh doctor from humble beginnings who was a pioneer of Freud’s methods in England, an..."

I’ve read two books by Jones, On the Nightmare and Hamlet and Oedipus. Coincidentally, just yesterday I came across a reference to the latter in my current reading, Reading Wagner: A Study in the History of Ideas. (About 50 years before Freud, Wagner published an analysis of the Oedipus myth which, unlike Freud’s, looks at the significance the story told across the full trilogy by Sophocles.)

I wouldn’t recommend the two Jones books unless you’re looking for a doctrinaire Freudian interpretation of the subjects he covers, which in On the Nightmare extends to various folkloristic monsters such as vampires and werewolves.

[Lljones]

Bill wrote: "...which in On the Nightmare extends to various folkloristic monsters such as vampires and werewolves."

Hard to see reference to vampires and werewolves without thinking of a certain Texan running for senator in Georgia.

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "MK wrote: "I appreciate the Sunni/Shia details. I'm thinking there is a comparison with the Balkans since both came under the Ottoman Empire umbrella for so long...."

"in the balkans ..."

very interesting, i suspect that the modern secular trend in the Balkans also plays a part(alongside the fact that Albania and Yugoslavia were communist states from 1945-1989). in that a moderate form of Islam was then watered down further by state atheism. Although there were elements of repression from the Serbs towards Albanians in the last decade of the 1980s.

Yugoslavia saw a huge demographic rise in Muslims in Serbia from 1970s to 1990s, almost entirely in Kosovo. They were the fastest growing group in a fairly diverse nation within Yugoslavia (the Hungarian minority in the north of Serbia was sizeable too). As for the Bosnian situation, it was always less Muslim than people seem to think, with a large Orthodox Serb and smaller Catholic Croat community, alongside the Bosniak Muslims.

Albania is almost an outlier, strongly secular under Hoxha, but with a slight Muslim majority, i would suspect that the communist era significantly changed traditional Muslim culture and beliefs in Albania, though

Lastly on the Shia-Sunni divide, the Alawi of Syria (of which the Assad powerbase is centered among, mostly in the NW coastal regions of the country which is a Shia Muslim sect), have a very open approach to the position of women.The veil or religious headgear is not used and women play a more open role in society but it should be noted this is a minority faith in Syria (maybe 15%). Alcohol is tolerated within Alawi culture as well. (On the negative side since the 1960s and the Assad rule, the Alawis have become powerful and Assad relies on hired thugs from this region and the sectarian Alawi crimes on behalf of the state are renowned)

[MK]

Lljones wrote: "Bill wrote: "...which in On the Nightmare extends to various folkloristic monsters such as vampires and werewolves."

Hard to see reference to vampires and werewolves without thinking of a certain ..."

I would say certain 'clueless' Texan, but then I suspect everyone knows where I stand.

[Bill]

Lljones wrote: "Hard to see reference to vampires and werewolves without thinking of a certain Texan running for senator in Georgia."

If there are any Georgia voters in the group who are planning to base their vote on this issue, I will note that Jones sees the vampire as symbolizing the oral-sucking stage of psycho-sexual development and the werewolf the oral-biting, or oral-sadistic, stage.

[CCCubbon]

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "A question:a common weed ..."

I'm not sure what answer you want here"

CC gave the answer in #293 and posted a photo. A plant I don't know at all...."
I agree with you in thinking that moss predates the horsetail , all coming out of the water originally but am unsure of the definition. Whatever the horsetail is common and a nuisance . Think I will nod my head to it as I pull it up next in respect for its longevity.

[Andy]

scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "Strange to be having two conversations with you in two different places.. but I’ll keep them where they are, just in case others are taking an interest.. which I doubt.

Haha! I don't ..."

I know what you mean.
There are a few folk there though who we’ve known for years and it’s good to exchange opinions and see what they’re reading..

[Andy]

giveusaclue wrote: "So I went to look at the nominations for the Good reads Choice awards and have to confess that I haven't read any of the books in any of the categories! 🙈"

Same here…

[Andy]

AB76 wrote: "My books of 2022

Might change if i read anything awesome in the next 3 weeks but as it stands:

Best classic novel:
Either Southern Steel by Dymphna Cusack or Bird Alone by Sean O'Faoalin. (If i d..."

You’re a bit early AB.
But thanks for these.

I like to do mine on NYE..

[Andy]

Gpfr wrote: " This sounds intriguing:Found in Translation: The Unexpected Origins of Place Names unravels the tangled threads of h..."

Yes it’s on my list.
I got it from their newsletter, which I’m guessing you did as well..

[Andy]

A catch up from me.

Very disappointed by Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other which won the Wainwright Nature Prize.
I didn’t like the style of writing, and the author’s diary running parallel to the pandemic days of the hospitalised Prime Minister and his sympathies. I really didn’t want to read that. If that’s not enough, he doesn’t like dogs also..

On a much brighter note, The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

This was tremendous.

I have a difficulty accepting part of Blackwood’s premise though, and it’s not what he may expect; in that such an area of the Danube was wilderness and quite uninhabited. I guess 115 years ago it was very different than it is now.

But the horror aspect is superbly done. It’s a rare case for me with a book, but I wanted more than its 80 odd pages.

He pairs together a couple of intrepid explorers, an aristocratic adventurer, and his seasoned companion, a more pragmatic Swede, on a journey by canoe down the mighty Danube River. Despite warnings off nasty goings-on from the local Hungarians, they stop for the night on one of the river’s many small islands, in swampland and surrounded by willow-bushes.

Blending terror with the flora and fauna and then a snifter of the divine shows Blackwood off as a master of the genre. In this work it is possible to see so much of what was to come afterwards from those influenced by him, and yet this piece stands the test of time with no difficulty at all.

Blackwood himself sought refuge in the supernatural after rebelling from a strict Catholic upbringing.
A century on and it seems the rise in shamanism and paganism announced in a report last week at the expense of more traditional faith and worship, make him a pioneer.


I watched A View From A Hill on YouTube very late last night with a far too large Talisker, one of MRJ’s adapted for BBC, and it was better the fifth or sixth time around than ever.
I’m very much looking forward to this years Gatiss offering, for which I don’t think the title has been announced yet..

[Andy]

and, Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Suzanne Jill Devine.

As you may guess from the cover of the NYRB copy, and the fact that it is Casares, this lies far outside the realms of the normal.

It is told in the first person my Lucio, who is addressing someone who lives on his street, though exactly who, is not immediately clear. He tells of meeting and marrying, then soon after squabbling with his wife Diana. He stresses how fraught their marriage has become, and soon after he documents Diana’s committal to an asylum, yet the only sign of mental illness the reader is party to is their inability to agree on which dog to get.

With Diana committed, Lucio gets his dog, which he also calls Diana. Following this his narration becomes even more erratic. It is difficult to to understand just how surreal Casares intends procedings to be, or whether a degree of clarity may have suffered in translation.

It's worth sticking with though, as Diana, the wife not the dog, is pronounced cured and returns home, and in the last chapters, the pace increases, things are a little less baffling, and there is a good twist.

[Bill]

I see from my email that the Dec 22 NYRB (not yet received) has an article by Marilynne Robinson, “A Theology of the Present Moment” which, according to the sub-head asks the question, “Can bringing Scripture and science back into dialogue help answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing?” (Capitalization in the original.)

That will likely be a hate-read for me once the issue arrives, but I’m not sure I’ll have the stamina to read the whole thing if it gets heavily into theological explication. I was unable to read an earlier article by her from a few years ago, taking a deep dive into the idea of “a city on a hill”.

Note: here’s a link to the article, but non-subscribers will probably be able to read only the opening paragraphs:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022...

[AB76]

Andy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "My books of 2022

Might change if i read anything awesome in the next 3 weeks but as it stands:

Best classic novel:
Either Southern Steel by Dymphna Cusack or Bird Alone by Sean O'Fao..."

i think thats a sound system Andy, it will cover every single book, unless you have a long classic to finish on NYE and it over-runs?

[AB76]

Andy wrote: "A catch up from me.

Very disappointed by Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other which won the Wainwright Nature Prize.
I didn’t like the style of writing, and the a..."

anything involving that revolting liar in its pages would have same effect on me Andy and not liking dogs, not good.

i fear that the revolting liar will get a better press at times pass and we will have the national forgetting tradition, where jobsworths and lazy chancers become national treasures. i hope if it make it to 70 odd, and i hear Bojo being venerated, i will remind the clueless of the 2019-2022 period and the 1989-2018 period, where that witless chump roamed this septic isle lying, cheating and...well maybe not stealing

[[deleted user]]

Bill wrote: "Russell wrote: "Freud’s Wizard – Brenda Maddox...

I wouldn’t recommend the two Jones books unless you’re looking for a doctrinaire Freudian interpretation..."

Thanks for the warning.

[giveusaclue]

Can I just ⚽🎉 now as I am not at all confident for next Saturday

[Gpfr]

Andy wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Found in Translation: The Unexpected Origins of Place Names..."

Yes it’s on my list.
I got it from their newsletter, which I’m guessing you did as well..

I did indeed!

[AB76]

Its interesting in the last section of The Luftwaffe Diaries how the Allies from 1943 onwards confront the same issues the Luftwaffe had in the Battle of Britain. Namely that a fighter dominated home defence would always prevail over bombers without sufficient protection.

The Yanks with their Flying Fortresses were finding this in 1943, as they had no fighters with the range to accompany their huge bomber fleets and the Luftwaffe were fighting back hard. It wasnt till fighter escorts with range were introduced in early 1944 that the tide swiftly started to turn and the attrition rate was severe on the Luiftwaffe.

The diaries are keen to make the point that the civilian targeting of the RAF had little effect on the German people or led to a loss of morale,. it was the targeted american bombing of chemical industry and fuel supply that ended the Luftwaffe ability to fight. Amazingly even after the aircraft factories were blitzed, dispersal of parts and hard work meant production was back to normal within months, not so with the fuel dumps being destroyed.

By Summer 1944 the Luftwaffe lacked the crews to fly the mass produced planes and then by September the fuel as well. Apparently only about 500 planes were available with crew by June 1944, at d day, Sperrle, the Western Front Luftwaffe chief had maybe 450 planes to oppose 9,000 allied.

[Gpfr]

I'll close this thread in about 4 hours, 4 pm French time.