Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 5 December 2022
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And I've just realised that I haven't read the last in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, In Dust and Ashes.
AB76 wrote: "its been interesting to read your comments on Marse scarlet, was it me who got you on the path? i think it might have been"It was indeed, and I am very thankful... you recommended The Snares of Memory, which is the most innovative in terms of structure that I've read... I loved this apart from a slightly limp ending.
What I've got from reading several Marsés in quick succession is a clear - if impressionistic - view of what it felt like to grow up in a particular milieu - the defeated leftists from working class Barcelona in the 1940s. The fathers are pretty much always absent; the mothers have to find ways to cope and survive; and the adolescents are deeply affected by the recent past, and are tentative about how to approach the future. In the background - either explicitly or, often, simply implicity - lie the more-or-less hostile Francoist elements - the Falangists ('blue rats') with their insignia ('the black spiders') and their 'social police'.
I don't think the approach of reading many books by the same author is necessarily worth following; many writers cover whole different areas from book to book, whereas others such as Anne Tyler deals often in a generally similar social register but with very different characters. Marsé, though, focuses so intensely on the same period and same geographical and social areas that his whole ouvre seems to form parts of a single vision.
I didn't know that when I started, though - my reason for following through was simply a disinclination to be disappointed. Once I find authors I like, I can easily absorb their life's work in the blink of an eye! (Only joking... slightly.) Too many 'experiments' end in disappointment or boredom.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "its been interesting to read your comments on Marse scarlet, was it me who got you on the path? i think it might have been"It was indeed, and I am very thankful... you recommended [b..."
another writer from same millieu, though female and older is Merce Rodoreda, a catalan language writer/ I greatly enjoyed her Garden By the Sea, though it was one of her less political novels
CCCubbon wrote: "...Do read the first book in the series first ( A grave for two)"Thank you for this recommendation... I've asked for a sample.
A neighbour leant me a book on our local history a few days ago. Initially I wondered what I had let myself in for. It had come about when I mentioned Lee Schofield’s book, Wild Fell: Fighting For Nature On A Lake District Hill Farm.
But, I was in for a treat..
A Backwater In Lakeland: A War-Time Wandering, An Autumn Pilgrimage in Mardale, Haweswater And District by Isaac Hinchcliffe
First published in 1921, with a 2001 reissue, this is a short but beguiling insight into life in a Lake District community just after the First World War, and just before Mardale village and it’s surrounding farms were flooded by what is now HawesWater.
It makes a wonderful partner to a book published about the area just this year (2022) that received an ‘honourable mention’ for the Wainwright Conservation Prize, Wild Fell by Lee Schofield. Something written al it’s exactly a hundred years before, gives Schofield’s book perspective and contrast.
Hinchcliffe himself was no professional author, just simply a visitor from town who came to hike and enjoy the area, and who felt confident enough to record some of the stories of the community had shared with him. He was aware and concerned they would become lost due to the vast change that was ahead, in order to provide Manchester with its drinking water, as he stresses throughout.
Though a lament, this is a celebration of life rather than a carp.
The anecdotes are splendidly told, from the concerns about the local estate owner, Jim Lowther, entertaining Kaiser Wilhelm II for sport and drinks in the years leading up to the war, to the restless ghost of Hugh Lowther from a century before up at Laithes Pike.
He relates with great humour how when sat for a picnic with his wife by the lake they watch as a weasel swims across. Then, for no obvious reason, he kills it, but feels ‘immediately remorseful’. His wife berates him continually until the following day she makes him return to find dead creature so they can stuff it for their living room, but alas, a fox or suchlike has taken it overnight.
A wonderful book that deserves much better recognition. At the moment it doesn’t even feature on the GoodReads database.
Here’s a clip..
After a good day’s sport, huntsmen, shepherds, visitors, sheep-dogs and terriers (hounds are not admitted) all turn into the “Dun Bull” for a hearty meal. In the evening a smoking concert is held in the dining room,, and a long table on trestles stands in the middle of the room. Around it sit all those who have gathered during the day. A chairman is appointed, and sits at the head of the table, whilst under the table are the sheep-dogs and terriers galore. Tots are proposed in the usual way; then the chairman calls for a song, if there is a chorus so much the better. Everybody is supposed to sing at least one song. Sometimes if it has a good swing, the shepherds beat the tables with their sticks, and the sheep-dogs and terriers join the chorus with enthusiasm or execration, no man knows which.
AB76 wrote: "one of the old ladies at the centre had fun at the local tandoori, with an asian elvis impersonator dancing for her"What's the name of an Indian restaurant that features an Elvis impersonator: "Love Me Tandoor"?
scarletnoir wrote: "Whilst under the weather, I managed to read a couple of 'entertainments':Bad Actors by Mick Herron was up to the usual standard - good fun, especially for those of us familiar wit..."
Here's a clip from the blurb of
which I found at my local library - Now, for the first time, Herron's short fiction has been collected into one volume. In Dolphin Junction, devoted fans and future converts alike will find much to amuse, delight, and terrify them. Five standalone nerve wrackingly thrilling crime fiction stories are complemented by four mystery stories featuring the Oxford wife-and-husband detective team of shrewd Zoë Boehm and hapless Joe Silvermann. The collection also includes a peek into the past of Jackson Lamb, irascible top agent at Slough House.I wish SOHO would do a promo for Slough House fans. I'm thinking of a bright background T-shirt with a tasteful outline of a yellow car where a pocket might be, and then, of course, a huge yellow car on the back with "Yellow Car" printed underneath it. I wonder if "Shirley" should get some credit, too - perhaps her name under the yellow car on front? That would get people talking.
To tintilate, here's a clip from the recent New Yorker article praising Mick Herron - “A double yolker!” Herron and Howard shouted out as we passed a pub. “What?” “Two yellow cars,” Herron explained.
Yellow car is a game the slow horses play when they’re very, very bored. You see a yellow car and you say, “Yellow car.” Unless, apparently, you see two.
Yesterday was something of a write-off due to this book, Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk by Buddy Levy. I was not far into it and everything went on hold, as I realised I had stumbled on one of the books of the year.
The Karluk was the principal ship of the 1913–1916 Canadian Arctic Expedition led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, an experienced polar explorer who was perhaps better at self-promotion than organisation. He had convinced the Canadian government to finance an expedition to investigate Inuit people, on its northern coast and the relatively unmapped sea and islands beyond.
From his earlier and unsuccessful expedition in 1910, he had developed a somewhat ridiculous theory on ‘the Blond Eskimo’ from sightings of fair-haired Inuit.
Soon after leaving port in June it became clear to the captain of the Karluk, Bob Bartlett, that the ship was not suitable for the journey. By August it was completely ice-bound. It had been an unusually cold summer, another factor that had been ignored by Stefansson. After a couple of weeks he left with five crew to hunt caribou, and never returned, joining another vessel in the fleet to continue the expedition, leaving 25 of the crew members, with Bartlett, behind. After drifting for a few weeks it was crushed, and the crew had to survive on the ice and then struggle across 50 miles of frozen sea to Wrangel Island, north of Siberia. From Wrangel, Bartlett and an Inuit explorer set out on a 700 mile trek to seek help.
Levy is fantastic at this sort of thing, perhaps aided by him having more time on his hands than he expected to work on it during the pandemic. As with Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition his writing is completely gripping, but perhaps even more so here, as the expedition is less well known than Greely’s, and if the prospective reader is careful to avoid summary spoilers, they can embark on the book without knowing who manages to survive.
It’s fascinating for more reasons also; as a dog (as a pet) and a cat play significant roles, and indeed because the last survivor of the expedition to die, was in 2008. She was just 3 when stranded in Wrangel Island; at the time it was common for the Inuit to join such expeditions with their family.
This mix of heroism and the hair-raising (I don’t include myself in that bit..) is an excellent addition to Arctic Exploration literature. With Levy’s evocative descriptions of the ice, affecting action sequences and authentic character descriptions this begs to be adapted for the screen.
AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "LRB has a good article on the study of vernacular languages and the difference between the study of English in the USA and UK from the late 19th century onwards. While in t..."I'll take the driver's word for it at the moment if you don't mind. Don't fancy the risk of trying it out! As I say on the subject - I want to wake up dead one day, but not yet.
Bill wrote: "AB76 wrote: "one of the old ladies at the centre had fun at the local tandoori, with an asian elvis impersonator dancing for her"What's the name of an Indian restaurant that features an Elvis imp..."
superb Bill...i like it!
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "LRB has a good article on the study of vernacular languages and the difference between the study of English in the USA and UK from the late 19th century onward..."i'm with you there, there is no hurry for me either...
AB76 wrote: ".if death is like a comfortable everlasting sleep, that would be nice, something akin to before we were born maybe, a sort of void....a comfortable void"I don't think of before we were born as being like that, I just think we...weren't. I don't have any faith in there being an afterlife, I can't get my head round how that can be when you brain has died. I think many of us are not so much scared of being dead (not like the old days with the idea of eternal purgatory) but the manner of dying.
My biggest sadness about dying is that I will never know what happens from then on. Perhaps being history nerd and not know what history will happen next.
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "LRB has a good article on the study of vernacular languages and the difference between the study of English i..."I had to look what a columbarium was. I thought it might be something to do with doves!
Andy wrote: "A neighbour leant me a book on our local history a few days ago. Initially I wondered what I had let myself in for. It had come about when I mentioned Lee Schofield’s book, Wild Fell: Fighti..."
Kind of continuing on a nature theme, I've just put this on hold at the library - [bookcover:Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America. I know it's about the US, but I also see beavers are being reintroduced in the UK -
https://norfolkriverstrust.org/beavers/
Sorry to say, I seem to be into italics here.
scarletnoir wrote: "Whilst under the weather, I managed to read a couple of 'entertainments':Bad Actors by Mick Herron was up to the usual standard - good fun, especially for those of us familiar wit..."
I read one of the short story books Standing by the Wall and wasn't impressed I am afraid.
MK wrote: "Andy wrote: "A neighbour leant me a book on our local history a few days ago. Initially I wondered what I had let myself in for. It had come about when I mentioned Lee Schofield’s book, [book:Wild..."
Indeed MK, thanks for that.
They were reintroduced to the River Lowther about 2 miles from here..
Its supposed to be a secret place, but we, the locals, all know they are there.
I keep my eyes out, as I know they are very good at escaping.
It’s a sight today our river, completely frozen on the surface at least, quite spectacular - was -12 here last night.
Andy wrote: "A neighbour leant me a book on our local history a few days ago. Initially I wondered what I had let myself in for. It had come about when I mentioned Lee Schofield’s book, [book:Wild Fell: Fighti..."
Andy, have you read the Herries chronicles by Hugh Walpole, set in the Lake District?
giveusaclue wrote: "Andy wrote: "A neighbour leant me a book on our local history a few days ago. Initially I wondered what I had let myself in for. It had come about when I mentioned Lee Schofield’s book, [book:Wild..."
I haven’t, but I must..
cheers..
giveusaclue wrote: "MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "LRB has a good article on the study of vernacular languages and the difference between the study o..."Some are big into historic preservation here in Seattle. There's even a group, partially funded by the city, whose mission is keeping "old (to us) buildings" intact. Ages ago this group did a tour of Mount Pleasant Cemetery with its columbarium. We got to check out whose ashes are there. I was taken by the fact that Erastus Brainerd was one. (Watch those eye-rolls, folks😉) He publicized the Yukon gold strike which fueled the growth of Seattle in the 1890s. The Canadians had a huge list of stuff gold seekers had to bring with them, and where else but Seattle to buy them.
For an idea of how hard it was to get to the Yukon Google - yukon gold rush photo hill
Anyway, that tour gave me the idea of having my urn down among some historic Seattle personages. After I die peacefully in my sleep!
Andy wrote: "MK wrote: "Andy wrote: "A neighbour leant me a book on our local history a few days ago. Initially I wondered what I had let myself in for. It had come about when I mentioned Lee Schofield’s book,..."
Brr! The weatherman says there may be white stuff each day next week (thanks to air from Vancouver, Canada) so I am going on safari today, just in case. No slipping and sliding for me, not to mention I have so many books here to curl up with.
Gpfr wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: " Anne Holt ..."And I've just realised that I haven't read the last in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, In Dust and Ashes."
I am not one for recommending books not having popular taste so hope you like them.
Book number two shows that Anne Holt was once a minister and it gives the book some feeling of authenticity. She does use a few quotes but most is made up although I could appreciate that such things could happen in real life, that is what makes the book quite powerful.
I recommend reading Book 1 first simply because it will help to establish the character of Selme Flack in addition to being a good tale.
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: ".if death is like a comfortable everlasting sleep, that would be nice, something akin to before we were born maybe, a sort of void....a comfortable void"I don't think of before we we..."
the idea of definitive ending i think is the biggest fear with death, nothingness...Mishima in his study of the samurai notes that in Japan, the western fear of death barely exists, the concept of death is seen in a very different way
Mod
I am not one for recommending books not having popular taste so hope you like them...."
Since I like her others, I imagine I will :)
The Morbid Age by Richard Overy, is really invigorating my mind, it is a study of the thoughts and ideas of the 1919-1939 period, rather than events.Overy has studied a huge amount of books and pamphlets, studied the stored notes by various historians, commentators, socologists, economists and personalities to look intricately at British culture in those 20 years, which spanned two destructive wars.
I had never realised the one of the visionaries of the NHS and the post-WW2 labout govt, Nye Bevan had worked with Ossie Mosley in the early 1930s, when Mosley was setting up his New Party but Bevan didnt leave Labour and join the New Party
An update on recent reading, also posted in the Guardian. I've been reading non-fiction on the 1930s and the Second World War.
Sebastian Haffner's Defying Hitler is a personal account, from World War I until he emigrated from Germany in the late 1930s. Despite the title, the question that haunts Haffner is why there was so little resistance to Hitler and why it was so ineffective. A different perspective on the period than I usually see, that of the emigre German intelligentsia, adds value to this book.
Another unusual perspective comes from Henry "Chips" Channon's Diaries 1918-1938. An earlier edition of the diaries, heavily vetted by Channon's son, appeared years ago. Now, after time has swept his subjects away, the full diary is in print. The man was fascinated by royals, jewels, design, parties. When he gets away from lists of dinner guests, Channon is a good narrator. His diary becomes much more interesting after he enters Parliament in 1936.
Though Channon and Anthony Eden had been friends during their Oxford days, Eden was far more successful than the others of their circle, and becomes Channon's bete noir as British Foreign Minister. Churchill is an opponent, but there is less of a personal edge.
Channon and Churchill agreed on one issue: Edward VIII's abdication. Both men had become friends of Edward as Prince of Wales and offered aid and comfort during the crisis. Both men later learned about Edward's one-way idea of loyalty. The diary, after the abdication, has an interesting passage on Edward's coldness. The diarist is much fonder of Edward's wife, Wallace Simpson, and his loyalty to her is backed by respect for her character.
A vocal appeaser, Channon respects Churchill's abilities as an orator, but throws stones at all of his warnings about Hitler.
I'm through the Austrian crisis, and heading on to the Czech crisis. More on recent reading later.
AB76 wrote: "another writer from same millieu, though female and older is Merce Rodoreda, a catalan language writer/ I greatly enjoyed her Garden By the Sea, though it was one of her less political novels...."Thanks for the suggestion... this book does not seem to be easily available. I looked at some others, and the reviews - it seems some translations are poor. I'm not sure where to go with this author, especially as at least one book has - apparently - a lot of magical realism in it, which I don't like.
giveusaclue wrote: "I think many of us are not so much scared of being dead (not like the old days with the idea of eternal purgatory) but the manner of dying.My biggest sadness about dying is that I will never know what happens from then on. Perhaps being history nerd and not know what history will happen next."
I go along with all of that, despite not being a history nerd! Death itself is nothing to be scared of; a painful death, a prolonged illness, or dementia - definitely.
giveusaclue wrote: ".I had to look what a columbarium was. I thought it might be something to do with doves!"So did I - and you are not actually wrong:
A columbarium (/ˌkɒləmˈbɛəri.əm/;[1] pl. columbaria) is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased.
The term can also mean the nesting boxes of pigeons. The term comes from the Latin "columba" (dove) and, originally, solely referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons called a dovecote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columba...
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "another writer from same millieu, though female and older is Merce Rodoreda, a catalan language writer/ I greatly enjoyed her Garden By the Sea, though it was one of her less political..."oh no...i loathe magical realism too.....
Robert wrote: "...Another unusual perspective comes from Henry "Chips" Channon's Diaries 1918-1938...."
Very interesting. I think I'll have to read those diaries, at least the ones from the late 1930s. I had a hazy recollection of Channon from The Wilderness Years being a sort of parliamentary ally of Churchill. It must have been from the Abdication episode, because the Wikipedia entry indicates that apart from that they were pretty much polar opposites, Channon being as you say an appeaser. Several of his contemporaries seem to have regarded him as a very nasty person. But there was one good literary joke. When he was knighted the year before his death a friend, Princess Marthe Bibesco, sent him a telegram: “Goodbye Mr Chips.”
Very interesting. I think I'll have to read those diaries, at least the ones from the late 1930s. I had a hazy recollection of Channon from The Wilderness Years being a sort of parliamentary ally of Churchill. It must have been from the Abdication episode, because the Wikipedia entry indicates that apart from that they were pretty much polar opposites, Channon being as you say an appeaser. Several of his contemporaries seem to have regarded him as a very nasty person. But there was one good literary joke. When he was knighted the year before his death a friend, Princess Marthe Bibesco, sent him a telegram: “Goodbye Mr Chips.”
scarletnoir wrote: Death itself is nothing to be scared of; a painful death, a prolonged illness, or dementia - definitely.Don't be so sure about dementia.
My mother was, as long as I knew her a difficult and unhappy person. That changed dramatically with her dementia. It turned her into a serene, happy, smiling being. Her true self. I will be forever grateful for that.
Finished To Have and Have Not, a Hemmingway novel set in Key WestVery strange, elements of a thriller, a socialist commentary and an experimental tale of a small coastal town in the keys. At times the action was taut and nervy, the wording macho and uneasy, then it shifts tense and moves to characters barely established.
I liked it, it was never boring but rather odd, the racism isnt good though and the effect of it being stitched together from 2 short stories and a novella is more noticeable now i have finished it./
Georg wrote: "Don't be so sure about dementia...."I am sure about dementia. My father - never the easiest person to deal with - became physically aggressive and in the later stages doubly incontinent as Lewy Body dementia took hold. He used to fall over often, and as my mother could not lift him and the ambulance service was fed up with the calls, I often had to leave work to get him upright again.
My mother's mother had Alzheimer's disease and was a shell of her former self for the last 6 years of her life; she also, on one memorable occasion, set my parent's house on fire by putting coal in a kitchen cupboard and setting it alight.
Did she warn the rest of us after this? Not a bit - my brother was fortunately woken up by hearing her rattling at the front door in a vain attempt to escape. He told the rest of us to get out - and we did.
So dementia? No thanks. If it comes to it, I'm off to Dignitas.
scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "Don't be so sure about dementia...."I am sure about dementia. My father - never the easiest person to deal with - became physically aggressive and in the later stages doubly inconti..."
about 40% of the day centre clients have dementia and its horrible to see the regression in clients, some remain light hearted and fun, others become a shell or get aggressive. the families bear a hard burden and when lockdown happened, many were in despair without any respite
AB76 wrote: "Finished To Have and Have Not, a Hemmingway novel set in Key WestVery strange, elements of a thriller, a socialist commentary and an experimental tale of a small coastal town in the keys. At tim..."
So did you agree with the reference I posted a few days ago:
"Hawks claimed he could make a good film out of Hemingway's worst novel. He does and Hemingway hopefully paid up."
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Finished To Have and Have Not, a Hemmingway novel set in Key WestVery strange, elements of a thriller, a socialist commentary and an experimental tale of a small coastal town in the ..."
i dont think it was that bad, i was never bored with the novel , though i havent seen the film, i must admit
key west and havana, the sea, the brief but interesting discovery of the "Conch" population of Key West. (Bahamians descended from British Loyalists from the War of Independence, living on Key West), all were interesting
Mod
Arnaldur Indridason: Le mur des silences (doesn't seem to be available in English yet).
This is the latest in the Konrad series. The story alternates between events in the past and in the present day. Konrad (ex-policeman) is still trying to find out the truth about his father's murder and gets involved in the investigation of another murder from the past. A body, which had been walled up in a cellar, is found. It turns out that there is a connection with Konrad's father. During the course of the book, he alienates everyone except the woman whose father was the partner of his father in defrauding people by fake seances.
Although the book is well-written and I persevered to the end, I didn't really enjoy it and I'm not inclined to read any more Indridason, I think. By the end of his first series, Erlendur got depressing and I'm finding the same thing now with Konrad. There's a French word glauque which I think is hard to translate exactly in English; suggestions in Linguée are gloomy, murky, sleazy, seedy, sordid ... Anyway, I find the atmosphere in the book and its hero glauque.
At last I have got Goodreads to load. I am having endless tech problems lately. I need new kit I think.Anyway I have been reading The Master's Apprentice by Oliver Potsch which is a retelling of the Faust story .
Young Faust has been rejected by his family and has lost his brother and the love of his life and falls into the hands of a devil- worshipping follower of Gilles de Rai's (aka Blue beard) he learns a lot from his dubious master though and manages to escape his clutches but for how long?
I am about to start part two.
I had a break from devilry to read The Christmas Train by David Baldacci, I found it a heartwarming tale and it made me want to take a long train journey, but not in the depths of winter :)
My book of the year has been Lessons in Chemistry, which has won an award for a first novel.
I hope that everyone is well and in case I can't get back before the big day, Have a lovely Christmas all xx
In the latest NYRB (Dec 22) Merve Emre uses the appearance of Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected: A Biography to do a hatchet job on Roald Dahl. I always enjoy a good “tomahawking” (as Poe termed such pieces) if the target is, as here, sufficiently renowned, even when I disagree with the assessment, as I do in this case, to the extent I know Dahl’s work. The short stories from the late 1940s to 1970s collected in Someone Like You, Kiss Kiss, and Switch Bitch are a mix of horror, satire, and smut—memorable, if they are memorable at all, for their possibly campy, possibly misogynistic twists.I’ve read the first and last of these collections, along with the short novel My Uncle Oswald my only Dahl, and I would characterize his attitude as one of misanthropy rather than a more specific misogyny; the author seems disinclined to spare anyone a harsh judgment. Indeed, on finishing Someone Like You, I was impressed how the direct second-person address of the collective title implicated the reader in the dishonest, often despicable behavior that features in the almost all the stories.
One of the few characters in these stories whose behavior might strike some readers as darkly admirable is the housewife-protagonist of “Lamb to the Slaughter”, perhaps Dahl’s most famous story for adults. If this story had been written by a woman, I think it would today be considered a classic parable of feminist revenge against the patriarchy.
I also find the doubt cast on whether the stories are memorable puzzling. I found the number of memorable stories very high, especially considering that story collections in general are the fictional form that slips most easily from my memory. In this regard, Dahl’s ability to embed his stories in the memory seems a pretty rare achievement.
Emre may be right about Dahl’s screenplay for You Only Live Twice being “the Bond adaptation that ruined Bond adaptations”, but I think his adaptation of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which she mentions only in passing, is a great improvement on Fleming’s story, with the Vulgarians and the Child Snatcher providing memorable replacements for the rather colorless mobsters in the original book.
Anyway, I found Emre’s venom entertaining; she manages to shoehorn in comments and asides belittling his artistic stature throughout the piece.
The affairs of great artists are moderately interesting, especially if they provide grist for the mill. The affairs of lesser ones are, well, less so. There is little about Dahl’s divorce or remarriage that merits lengthy description, save how strenuously he and Liccy labored to present their marriage as his first and only one in the British tabloids.
His art, if one could call it that, was increasingly a source of struggle. There is, across all the biographies, a strange sense that, for Dahl, life did not grow bigger and richer, but smaller and shallower
Greenfairy wrote: "At last I have got Goodreads to load. I am having endless tech problems lately. I need new kit I think.Anyway I have been reading The Master's Apprentice by Oliver Potsch which is a retelling of t..."
Could you have a space issue -- as in lack of? Might be time to see what you should get rid of.
Russell wrote: "Robert wrote: "...Another unusual perspective comes from Henry "Chips" Channon's Diaries 1918-1938...."Very interesting. I think I'll have to read those diaries, at least the ones from the late 1..."
Channon went to Berlin during Hitler's Olympics. Channon had no interest in sport (at least not enough to mention the names of athletes or the winners), but he takes us on a tour of Berlin entertainment. No, not the Berlin cabarets, but the big parties thrown by rival Nazi leaders. Goering, a great showman, comes out on top....
Channon loved meeting with German royals, especially members of the non-Prussian dynasties. By the mid-1930s, he was quite convinced that the Nazi period would end in an imperial restoration.
Haffner's and Channon's books remind me of another 1930s work written by a German emigre, Hermann Rauschning's The Revolution of Nihilism - Warning to the West. Published in 1939, and addressed to conservative nationalists, the former Nazi attacks the social changes wrought by Hitler's dictatorship. No, no mention of the measures against the Jews, but much discussion of traditional authority undermined. Rauschning argues that Hitler's regime was revolutionary, that the country was in danger of disaster, and ends with an appeal to the German army to stop the Nazi revolution.
Later summaries of recent reading to follow....
Gpfr wrote: "Arnaldur Indridason: Le mur des silences (doesn't seem to be available in English yet).
This is the latest in the Konrad series. The story alternates betwe..."
Thanks for that - I like Indridason, but haven't read any in this series. It does sound a bit gloomy. The last Indridason I read was in the 'wartime' series with Flóvant and Thorson.
Greenfairy wrote: "My book of the year has been Lessons in Chemistry, which has won an award for a first novel."Sounds interesting - one plot line - Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with - of all things - her mind. - is reminiscent of Steve Martin's hilarious black comedy 'The Man with Two Brains' - bad taste the way I like it!
Bill wrote: "In the latest NYRB (Dec 22) Merve Emre uses the appearance of Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected: A Biography to do a hatchet job on Roald Dahl. I always enjoy a goo..."Thanks for that - like you, I do enjoy a good hatchet job - much more entertaining than eulogies. As for Dahl, I don't know much about him though it is said that he wasn't a very nice man (apparently). I don't recall reading any of his adult fiction, though I did read many of the kids' books to my daughters - they are often excellent stories, and pretty rude.
I did read and enjoyed his autobiography Going Solo, though it seems that it should be taken with a large dose of salt.
This seems as good a moment as any to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year... it is a pleasure to exchange tips and to discuss/debate/disagree in a civilised manner... not something which can be guaranteed everywhere online.In that spirit, I offer in lieu of any physical present links to some pieces of music which you may enjoy:
I'm not religious, but some of the most wonderful music ever composed is liturgical... this is not a Christmas piece - we'll hear plenty of those in the days to come - but Fauré's Requiem in a transcendental performance by the King's College Cambridge Choir under Sir David Willcocks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYC2u...
For anyone needing a lift, something much shorter and simpler - 'Celebration' by Kool and the Gang:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gwjf...
And if you are feeling the cold, here is a brilliantly edited video to accompany Santana & Rob Thomas's collaboration on 'Smooth':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Whgn...
(Madame came in during those last two, and could not resist dancing!)
Robert wrote: "Russell wrote: "Robert wrote: "...Another unusual perspective comes from Henry "Chips" Channon's Diaries 1918-1938...."Very interesting. I think I'll have to read those diaries, at least the ones..."
i have that Rauschning book , second hand copy,, i think i will pack it for my xmas break at my parents....
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Gpfr wrote: "Stii cold, -4° here at the moment, but this evening the temperature is starting to rise and temperatures way above the seasonal average are forecast for the rest of the week, rising to 14°! Togethe..."light sleet here and the first time at 9am where its above freezing since 8th December!
Sweet Thunder by Ivan Doig is a rare joy as it was recommended to me and i would never have ventured into the world of Doigs Montana without that recommendation.The tone is light humour, mixed with realism and a style that scampers along. Importantly for a novel without huge sections of descriptive narrative, the world of Butte, Montana, is vivid, the people, the mines, the geography, the weather.
Doig also has quite witty sections on beards, he is bearded in every photo i have seen and i am a lazy shaver and tend to have a beard every few months, the small details of beard management and it being a feature of a mans character amused me greatly
Also got Algy Blackwoods 1906 ghost story collection ready to go, following on from my Walter De La Mare,Arthur Machen and MR James reads, with Sontags essays
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Do read the first book in the series first ( A grave for two)..."
OK, you've persuaded me!
I think I've said before, I've read her Vik/Stubo series and the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, but not this one yet.