What are we reading? 3 April 2023

[Lass]

Re Nina Stibbe. Did you know she used to be a nanny, and lived near Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Claire Tomalin and other literary greats? Met her at Waterstone’s a few years ago, my copy of her book is signed. “Love Nina.”!

[AB76]

Tam wrote: "I am pottering around Heidelberg. It has rained a bit. I wish I hadn’t read about Heidelbergs micro climate. It has deserted me. So much wealth, ‘gang aft a gley’… in the castle and all round I gue..."

loving these updates Tam, you are travelling in a great country full of history, literature and culture. Germany is a heaven to explore and to think about

its a coincidence that i'm focusing on post WW2 Germany in my reading, as Konny Adenauer led West Germany towards prosperity and a new nation. Konny was canny, he knew Germany needed all the people it could from the years of war and strife to rebuild West Germany as an anti-communist bastion and to hold the Stalinist forces back. The Gehlen Organisation was a key pillar of that.

Over the last few years i have focused my post-45 non-fiction reading on the gloom and violence that fell on East Germany after 1945, as the communists destroyed society and strangled democracy. I am keen now to look more at the BDR and canny Konny

[MK]

From today's NYT - Lives Lived: Anne Perry was well into her career as a best-selling crime writer when her own murderous past was dramatized in a 1994 movie. She died at 84.

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Next up, non-fiction is a Yale Uni Press study of the Communist involvement in the Spanish Civil War, a long time fascination of min..."


have you got to the piles of books on the floor stage then Robert?

relevant to my Spanish Civil War and Communist interference reading is artwork on my profile pic. Lenin stares defiantly out of the page but in shade and far more evil, is the visage of Stalin, the coming doom.....the quiet man, who was to inflict so much death and suffering on the USSR.

[giveusaclue]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "@giveusaclue. My poor attempt at humour: tree slices aka pages of a book :)"

Haha, I thought it was a sort of Northern Ireland cake!"

:)

It would have had t..."


Reminds me of an episode of Midsomer Murders years ago when someone baked a cake and put cannabis (?) in and Barnaby got the giggles.

[giveusaclue]

MK wrote: "Anyone here to patronize a new bookstore in Derby?

Eagle Books Derby

New and second-hand books (with part exchange available), puzzle magazines and jigsaws!

19 East Street, Derby, United Kingdo..."

Thanks for that MK, I live about 8 miles away and whilst I read mainly ebooks, I have a friend who reads "real" books. I will pass the news on to her.

Just rang her, and she is very grateful was amused when I told her where you were posting from!

[Georg]

AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am pottering around Heidelberg. It has rained a bit. I wish I hadn’t read about Heidelbergs micro climate. It has deserted me. So much wealth, ‘gang aft a gley’… in the castle and all..."

Ronny and Konny and Donny and Johnny and Addie and Maggie and Lizzy and....
Always sounds so American to me. And not in a good way.

The communists in East Germany destroyed society? What exactly do you mean by that?

While I'd rather hang dead over a fence in Bielefeld than live in a state like the GDR maybe it would be a good idea to read the book by Katja Hoyer

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

If you care to unskew your perspective, that is.

I haven't read it. But it chimes with what I've heard from a fair lot of people who have experienced life in the GDR.
Over the last decade or two a new German word was coined: "Ostalgia" (Ost=east). It has a very solid foundation: in the GDR nobody went hungry, nobody froze, nobody was homeless. Nobody had problems to find a doctor, women could work without worrying about childcare and and and....
The basic necessities were provided for by the state For everybody. How many people in the UK in 2023 do you think would jump for joy having that? The bare necessities.

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am pottering around Heidelberg. It has rained a bit. I wish I hadn’t read about Heidelbergs micro climate. It has deserted me. So much wealth, ‘gang aft a gley’… in the c..."

looking foward to Hojers book in paperback, in 2024 or 2025. there is so much to read on the DDR and BDR, its fascinating, along with the statistical records available on line for free (the DDR one from 1959 attempts an analysis of BDR society in pictograms)

the question of security over freedom is a fraught one in the western world and hard to answer as i have never lived in a police state, though i know many who have. I admire the social security systems and provisions for workers that the communist world supplied and loathe the capitalist destruction of all that in the 1990s.

however the DDR managed to leak citizens for its entire history on a remarkable scale, which could be seen as people voting with their feet. no healthy society sees that level of emigration as a positive reflection of its morals and values.

[MK]

Time for a laugh. Hint - scroll down to find my favorite (it's about snow).

https://wapo.st/3KBq68J

[MK]

giveusaclue wrote: "MK wrote: "Anyone here to patronize a new bookstore in Derby?

Eagle Books Derby

New and second-hand books (with part exchange available), puzzle magazines and jigsaws!

19 East Street, Derby, Un..."

@Clue - I am a FB user and have liked Scarthin Books previously (visited Cromford ages ago), and they were the ones who posted welcoming the new Derby shop.

[Andy]

CCCubbon wrote: "Andy

Just caught up with the blog. Like the smooth snake . Silly me thought a crack in the dry earth until I looked more closely. Reminded me of the many slow worms whichvare similar though shorte..."

I do carry a bike CC.
This time, a new e-mountain bike.
I have another bike at home, but at the moment, I’m not finding it easy to ride (waiting for a new hip..).
It took me a while to convince myself to go electric, in the end I sold it to myself in that it’s so much fun, and a completely different sport
It’s a Basque make, Orbea, and it is so much fun..

I’ve a good friend who I met a few years ago on the Glentrool campsite, who shares similar interests to me, campervan, books, movies, etc, though she is a bit older. She has a new lease of life, in her words, after getting a (used) electric Bampton bike.

You make take some convincing about electric, but I’d say the thing to do is to get a test ride somewhere.
Not cheap, but a new world of fun.

[Greenfairy]

A great charity shop find today,for 50p.a mint copy of a British Library Crime Classic- Death in White Pyjamas and Death Knows no Calendar by John Bude -with a surprise bookmark from Blackwell's. Very happy with that:)

[Gpfr]

Greenfairy wrote: " British Library Crime Classic- Death in White Pyjamas and Death Knows no Calendar by John Bude ..."

I've read those, and some others by John Bude. I liked them.

[scarletnoir]

Lass wrote: "Re Nina Stibbe. Did you know she used to be a nanny, and lived near Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Claire Tomalin and other literary greats? ..."

Er, yes?

See my comment no. 98 in this thread! ;-)

[scarletnoir]

MK wrote: "Time for a laugh. Hint - scroll down to find my favorite (it's about snow).

https://wapo.st/3KBq68J"

Very funny - thanks!

[scarletnoir]

Georg wrote: "Over the last decade or two a new German word was coined: "Ostalgia" (Ost=east)."

Excellent neologism - I expect you have seen that very funny film called 'Good Bye Lenin!' in English - I'm sorry, but I haven't been able to find the German title. I liked it a lot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_By...!

WRT your discussion with AB - it's certainly true that the soviet states had some advantages (which you listed) as well as many disadvantages. I expect most Russians have suffered a great deal since the kleptocracy took over... but hey! A war will distract them.

[scarletnoir]

giveusaclue wrote: "Reminds me of an episode of Midsomer Murders years ago when someone baked a cake and put cannabis (?) in and Barnaby got the giggles."

It's a very funny episode - 'Faithful unto Death' (1998):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0647489/...

(Of course, we must remember that murder isn't a laughing matter... ;-( - according to some po-faced Guardian readers anyway!)

As it happens, exactly the same thing happened to my wife in the early 1980s - we went to Amsterdam for a break and entered a so-called coffee shop, where she bought and ate two small cakes... neither of us knew about this use of cannabis. She was very odd indeed for a few hours afterwards!

[Fuzzywuzz]

MK wrote: "Time for a laugh. Hint - scroll down to find my favorite (it's about snow).

https://wapo.st/3KBq68J"

I had a good laugh reading that, thanks :)

[CCCubbon]

Andy wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Andy

Just caught up with the blog. Like the smooth snake . Silly me thought a crack in the dry earth until I looked more closely. Reminded me of the many slow worms whichvare simi..."

Sounds wonderful Andy and I allowed myself to dream. I envy your travels. ‘Fraid my eyesight is too bad now outside but I can dream

[[deleted user]]

AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am pottering around Heidelberg..."

loving these updates Tam."

Me too.

[MK]

I expect the GOP would be happy if the US went back to this - The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America. It brought home both that women were essentially chattel and opportunities were nil. Then of course there was rape. I learned a lot about that in this book. Some of the ideas then are still prevalent among some in this country.

For anyone interested in historical litigation, there is plenty here. Also, I might mention that it was during this time, 1792, that A Vindication of the Rights of Women with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects was published.

And still we struggle.

[AB76]

The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism is really interesting, the first chapters looking at the pre-war years, from 1917 to early 1930s.

Communist meddling via the Comintern was consistent, devious and continuous. I was aware of this but had not seen it as a strategy, more of a chancers dabbling in spanish politics. But the familiar demonisation of Social Democrats, was there from the start. In Germany this policy led to the KPD and Nazi's sometimes working together and in Spain there was constant reference to the moderate Socialists as "fascists", a mendacious and untrue communist trick.

I have written on here before of the strong anarcho-syndicalism presence in Spain, this was a big problem for the communists as the PCE(Spanish communist party) was outflanked in its militancy and appeal by the CNT(spanish anarchists). Various Moscow agents, spanish communists, tried to slander the CNT but it wasnt until the civil war that systematic elimination of the anarchists was undertaken(Orwell witnessed this in Barcelona).

The malign presence of the USSR in trying to undermine western democracy was not as successful as they expected between 1917 and 1939, they got the Nazi's all wrong but in Spain they arguably de-stablised the country for over 2 decades, without full control until 3 brief years of war. Unlike the Italian and German support for Franco, the USSR support for the Republican side was tainted by intra-republican purges, murders and exploitations, instigated by Stalins agents and soldiers

I'm looking foward to the next chapter as we reach the crisis of the mid 1930s.

[giveusaclue]

I've just finished reading

The latest in the Marwood and Lovett series. Set in London just after the Great Fire. Marwood works for Lord Arlington a high up government minister. Lovett, now Hakesby is a woman earning a living as an architect. Once again Marwood gets dragged in by his employer to investigate a murder, the body being found in the grounds of an almhouses Hakesby is building. Things get complicated and Marwood finds himself in great danger, but who from?

For anyone who enjoyed C J Sansom's Shardlake series this is well worth a try. One thing is certain - politics was just as dirty then as it is now! The books do really need to be read in order.

[Georg]

scarletnoir wrote: "Georg wrote: "Over the last decade or two a new German word was coined: "Ostalgia" (Ost=east)."

Excellent neologism - I expect you have seen that very funny film called 'Good Bye Lenin!' in Englis..."

The German title of "Good Bye Lenin" is "Good Bye Lenin" :-)

[scarletnoir]

Georg wrote: "The German title of "Good Bye Lenin" is "Good Bye Lenin" :-).."

Haha! I did wonder if that might be the case - I was rather baffled. You can usually find the original title online...

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "I've just finished reading

The latest in the Marwood and Lovett series. Set in London just after the Great Fire. Marwood works for Lord Arlington a high ..."

I've got the 1st in this series, which I recently realised I don't seem to have read, though I thought I had. 🤔 So I've reinstated it in the virtual TBR pile, we'll see ...

[AB76]

The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra(2007) continues a theme of the last five years where modern and classic Latin American literature has fascinated me, mainly from the southern cone but also other countries too.

Way back in the mid 2000s, the Oxford Library of Latin America led me to half a dozen brilliant novels from the region, mostly 19th century but i had yet to discover the more modern novels, from the 1920s to 1960s, now i have read so many of these great novels and also, unusually for me, a lot of modern Latin American novels too.

Unlike with most of my reading, modern novels from South America have been very rewarding and quite demanding too. The only genre i dislike from South America is magical realism and anything by Garcia Marquez.

Anyway, back to Zambra, who i think along with Cesar Aira, is the best male writer of that region over the last decade, though actually the female writers of this era(roughly last decade) are even better Enqriquez, Almada, Schewblin, Trias and Jimenez

I digress, back to Zambra, with his short and unusual novels, he is like Aira but Zambra is my generation and seems to be writing and looking around at where Latin America is now, where his homeland of Chile lies in the 21st century. He was written many good book reviews and articles as well, a real talent and this slim 100 page novel has started superbly, it feels fresh and bright, well constructed

[MK]

I have added picking up from a neighboring library today - Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History .

This addition to my 'to do' list today is because I read about the return of Justin Jones to the Tennessee legislature in the NYT today. He was wearing a white suit. In history, white seems to be a form of protest. So, I hope to add it to my library pile.

[Georg]

MK wrote: "I have added picking up from a neighboring library today - Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History . ..."

Ah, that cover picture: shapely male legs in tights, the dainty red-heeled and -ribboned shoes and a heavy regal robe coquettishly pulled up to show them. What's not to love?

When you get the book would you let me know who painted it? I'd like to see the upper half. Which I imagine will show a not so attractive middle-aged face with a double chin framed by an opulent wig

[AB76]

Pigeons On The Grass by Wolfgang Koeppen(1951)

This is a read that is really making me think, Koeppen packs so much into the various lives of people on a day in Munich, in the late 1940s. The war and memory provides a circular theme, every character, German or not, has some memories of "before", the German characters, of course, have lost so much but using a questioning style Koeppen keeps you thinking about reasons and actions, nothing is settled.

Its style reminds me a lot of his novel The Hothouse set in Bonn, then the capital of West Germany , though that novel is a about political allegiances and compromises in post war West Germany. A nation being built by canny Konny Adenauer, the Catholic from Koln

[[deleted user]]

La fille aux yeux d’or – Honoré de Balzac (1834)

This is the novella in which, after a long introduction anatomizing the ugly mœurs of Parisians high and low, we first meet the illegitimate and debonair Henri de Marsay - and who wouldn’t be debonair, with an income of cent mille livres de rente? In later books we find him Prime Minister. Here, he is a young man with poetry in his heart. One day, sauntering to the Tuileries, he encounters the young woman of his dreams, his Clarissa, a girl with golden eyes, elegant, sinuous, suave, mysterious yet real, who looks at him, her eyes promising an abyss of pleasures, like the woman seen seated in the Pompeiian fresco, stroking a chimera. All he wishes is to repose at the feet of this alluring girl, that she may stroke him. But how to approach her when she is attended by a vigilant duenna?

So begins a tale of passion loaded with erotic fatality. Harold Bloom chose it as one of only eight Balzacs in his Western Canon. Others are omitted, but this does deserve its place.

[Robert]

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am pottering around Heidelberg. It has rained a bit. I wish I hadn’t read about Heidelbergs micro climate. It has deserted me. So much wealth, ‘gang aft a gley’… in the c..."

And the size of the Stasi, and the number of staff needed to maintain the jails, guaranteed full employment.

[giveusaclue]

Robert wrote: ">And the size of the Stasi, and the number of staff needed to maintain the jails, guaranteed full employment."

And all those trying to flee, as opposed to nobody attempting to enter.

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am pottering around Heidelberg. It has rained a bit. I wish I hadn’t read about Heidelbergs micro climate. It has deserted me. So much wealth, ‘gang aft a g..."

Exactly surveillance society is hardly an ideal one!

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "Robert wrote: ">And the size of the Stasi, and the number of staff needed to maintain the jails, guaranteed full employment."

And all those trying to flee, as opposed to nobody attempting to enter."

it was a failed state from the first year of its inception, makes one wonder if they had embraced democratic plurality and an open economy in the 1950s whether they could have matched the BDR on a smaller scale.

[MK]

Georg wrote: "MK wrote: "I have added picking up from a neighboring library today - Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History [bookcover:Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History|..."

Here it is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrai...

The legs pictured are so much more shapely than mine.

A bit of sleuthing, though. I was able to see the fleur de lis on the book cover, asked Google, and here we are.

[MK]

AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Robert wrote: ">And the size of the Stasi, and the number of staff needed to maintain the jails, guaranteed full employment."

And all those trying to flee, as opposed to nobody..."

I'll put in a repeat plug for Dan Fesperman's Winter Work which I liked a lot. Nothing like Stasi on the run.

[AB76]

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Robert wrote: ">And the size of the Stasi, and the number of staff needed to maintain the jails, guaranteed full employment."

And all those trying to flee, as oppo..."

thanks MK
interesting anecdote about stasi on the run, was watching a PBS documentary on cold war.

An RAF undercover crew were photographing a DDR airbase, the Sq Leader telling the tale said he was always aware of the Stasi tailing them and observing. On that day he noticed an antenna and 3 men on a ridge in the heathland. He said the best way to deter any Stasi observers was to run towards them agrressively and they would always melt into the woods and vanish, thats the Stasi on the run bit.

Sadly for this Sq Leader, these men were Russian Spetnatz units (special forces) and they didnt run, he was attacked beaten badly and his other men too, with all equipment smashed but nobody killed, the spetznatz then vanished into the gloom.

[Georg]

Every country, afaik, has an internal intelligence service, often split up into several branches/departments.
ISs of authoritarian regimes seem to lean heavily on intelligence gained from ordinary people that are recruited by various means. But that seems to be the only fundamental difference between authoritarian and democratic systems. They all spy on their own citizens.

In the FRG we have the "Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV). the governmental agency tasked with protecting the constitution from (perceived) enemies within.
It was, of course, like basically all public institutions a place where ex-Nazis found a home and could, seamlessly, or at worst with a slight delay, continue their careers. After they had received their "Persilschein" in the performative exercise of de-Nazification.

The judge Hubert Schrübbers (CDU) was the longest serving President of the BfV (1955-72). Just before his retirement his Nazi past came to light, SA, public prosecutor, SS. British PoW,(probably) recruited by the MI5, 1948 leading prosecutor at the upper court for the British occupied zone. The Persilschein framed in gold by the Brits, so to say.
He warranted an article about "the right-wing rot at the heart of the German state" in the NYT, alleging he had recruited other ex-Nazis for the service. In the upper echelons two of his Vicepresidents also saw their Nazi past made public.

The current President of the BfV is #14 since 1950. Nine (!) of his 13 predecessors had to resign or were forced to take early retirement. One of them was later convicted for embezzlement.

The two most recent political cases:

Heinz Fromm (SPD) resigned in 2012 after it turned out that substantial material collected by the BfV on the members of what came to be known as the NSU (Nationalsocialist Underground) terror group was shredded by people who worked under him.

His replacement was Hans-Georg Maassen (forced to retire in 2018) who turned out to have a lot of sympathy for the far-right and many chums among the AfD.



I doubt that anybody outside of Germany (or even younger Germans) have ever heard of the "Radikalenerlass" that was passed in 1972.
Everybody who applied for a job in the civil service had to undergo a thorough examination about their allegiance to the constitution. That sounds harmless, even understandable, doesn't it? Only it wasn't.
If you applied for a civil service job, being (as they were) train driver, postman, teacher or laywer there would be a request to the BfV for material they might have collected on you.
Member of a "communist" party? Don't even think about it. Ever made a written leftwing statement? Better forget it? Attended more than a couple of (peaceful) demonstrations for leftwing ccauses? Tricky. Spend your sleepless nights praying you have escaped the ubiquitous BfV photographers by chance.

To say it was a witch hunt, akin to what the HUAC did in the US would be an exaggeration.
But it did destroy the future of many people who were not extremists by a long shot.

As one political satirist put it so pithily: "Communist shall not turn our children into communists [pause]. Say the people who have been turned into democrats by the Nazis."


So: tell me again: what made the Stasi stand out from the crowd?

[MK]

Here's a link to some Stasi-related books - https://shepherd.com/bookshelf/stasi

[AB76]

MK wrote: "Here's a link to some Stasi-related books - https://shepherd.com/bookshelf/stasi"

thanks MK....i have already a few great books about the unique evil of the Stasi, it remains one of the most sinister secret police of the post-war Communist regimes. It seems having an unprincipled, violent secret police was a core pillar of the communist madness.

[AB76]

In The Spanish Civil War and The Soviet Union, Stanley G Payne, one of the top american professors on the period, is succint and precise in his appraisal of the Spanish unrest in 1934.

The upheaval that followed a moderate coalition being formed in 1933-34 was fuelled by the CNT(anarchists) and a broad swathe of Socialist groups. This militancy was all the more remarkable in that the Spanish government did very little to crush it, this was a liberal government in volatile times, Importantly the right wing bloc, CEDA was not yet benefitting from the tensions.

Payne sees the governments actions as a warning sign regarding where Spain was heading. Right wing and left wing propaganda was demonising and exaggerating the effects of both sides, while the goverment remained unpopular with these two groups, broady radical Socialist/CNT on the left and CEDA on the right.

The Communists were continually misjudging the temper of Spain in this period, they briefed that the socialists were "fascists"(samne policy the comintern ordered in Germany) but failed to win over the CNT or radical socialists. Like many Communist parties in the era, they were lackies of Moscow, it took their Moscow bosses a while to understand Spain and they were constantly having to return to square one to find sufficiently pliant and biddable henchmen to do their dirty work.

Many communist bosses in Moscow kept seeing a Russian 1905 or 1917 moment, when the reality was that Spain at the time was a democratic nation, with a united army and established workers organisations with a dislike for communism. Spain had the largest anarchist unions in Europe, established and respected, without these onside, the Communists would struggle. That is where they needed to compromise and use the tactics of eliminating these groups after gaining revolution in tandem with them , in the end the elimination by the Soviets began during the civil war and badly damaged the anti-Franco alliance

I always find that period in Barcelona as the Stalin henchman murdered people, stirred the pot and destablised the region incredibly sad. Orwell was one of the first to speak up about what the Soviets were doing and faced a lot of hostility from the communists and socialists around europe and in spain. (The Socialists knew that they benefitted from the subjugation and elimination of the anarchist groups and were uneasy about Orwell highlighting the true nature of what Stalin was up to)

[giveusaclue]

Georg wrote: "

So: tell me again: what made the Stasi stand out from the crow."

So how many people got killed trying to leave democratic countries?

[AB76]

I enjoy reading the FT Weekend every few weeks and the section on books is always very good

This weekend the Russian novelist Sergei Lebedev is interviewed, i read one of his novels The Year of the Comet and loved it.

At the end of the interview, where Lebedev is scathing about the Ukraine war, he says the following:

The Ukraine war is the defeat of Russian culture. And it is probably the final defeat. Because if Russia is to have any future at all, it will have to be another country. Another Russia”

I do see the point the Ukrainians make about how Russian culture and writing should be boycotted, many of the classic authors had nationalist views and even Solzhenitsyn by his final decade was writing of a new nationalism. i have read very little Russian lit since Feb 2022 but i dont think i will not read it, at all, if i do, i will search out the writers and voices of the "other", non nationalist Russia