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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 11/03/2024
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "Temporarily broken off Kangaroo by DH Lawrence to start on Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth..."
was Kangaroo not going well?..."
It was going along fine (the descriptions of the Sydney suburbs in the 20s reminded me of Clive James’ description of them in the 40s – they can’t have been much different). It’s just that I have 3 weeks to read the Ainsworth, and I now have my own copy of Kangaroo (Penguin Modern Classic from ABE) and can go back to it at any time.
was Kangaroo not going well?..."
It was going along fine (the descriptions of the Sydney suburbs in the 20s reminded me of Clive James’ description of them in the 40s – they can’t have been much different). It’s just that I have 3 weeks to read the Ainsworth, and I now have my own copy of Kangaroo (Penguin Modern Classic from ABE) and can go back to it at any time.
Gpfr wrote: "I was perturbed the other day to see a notification of a text message flash up on my phone screen, headed R.I.P. When I clicked on it, I found it was a reminder for an x-ray appointment — the initi..."When I went for my hip xray it took three weeks for the official report to get to my doctor, but the radiologist on the day took one look and said "Oh yes" I took one look and thought "bl**dy h*ll that looks a mess!
Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "Temporarily broken off Kangaroo by DH Lawrence to start on Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth..."was Kangaroo not going well?..."
It was going along fine (the descri..."
ah ok, makes sense, library demands!
Sydney is a curious city for me it has something of the Victorian-Edwardian in its suburban styles and designs, slowly being taken over as these fall down or are developed, alongside a shimmering harbour of sun and colour...
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "Temporarily broken off Kangaroo by DH Lawrence to start on Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth..."was Kangaroo not going well?..."
It was going along ..."
CCCubbon wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "Temporarily broken off Kangaroo by DH Lawrence to start on Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth..."was Kangaroo not going well?..."
It was..."
Sydney Harbour is great as is the Opera House. There’s a nice park too. We liked Manly Beach. Otherwise it’s all rather the same, suburbs. Bit sad saying that despite three visits. Last time there took a cab and the driver was drunk, aggressively so and we got out of the car.
This was all twenty years ago and I did find the overt racism disturbing and hope things have improved.
Hans Keilson is a fascinating German author of the same generation as Fallada, Koeppen and Boll but distinguished by his exile in occupied Holland as a German Jew. He spent the war in and around Delft in hiding and was re-discovered so to speak about 15 years ago as he reached his 100th birthday The three novels in english translation(two written in German and one in Dutch) are all linked to the Nazi's or WW2. I first read Life Goes On,2-3 yrs ago, set in late 1920s Brandenburg as the Nazii groups started to become a presence on the streets of German cities, the novel ends with an SA march past where the narrator is living. The novel i am reading is called The Death of the Adversary, publ;ished in the lare 1950s but written while he was hiding in Holland. While the plot clearly is about the rise of Adolf Hitler in the eyes of a young child in Germany, things are never exactly identified, though the creeping sense of alienation and dread in the child and his family will be familiar to so many. Its a questioning, analytical novel, confined to a small canvas and very readable. In the pages i read last night one can feel the deceptive nature of the early character of the dictator, promising such "good things " for the working German, a charismatic inspiration to a depressed nation...
I was reading Alice Roberts latest book Crypt yesterday and was surprised to learn that a very fishy diet eaten by someone might affect the radiocarbon dating of their bones many centuries later.The fishy diet of these individuals is also likely to have skewed the radiocarbon dating on the bones, making them appear older than they actually are. If that date range of 893–978 is too early, these unfortunate individuals could have been victims of the St Brice’s Day Massacre in 1002 after all.
The St Brice’s Day massacre was a shameful day in our history. King Ethelred the Unready ordered the mass killing of all Danes in his kingdom on 13 November 1002. He had been paying large sums of money to appease the Danes but thought his life was in danger from local people
The individuals mentioned were thirty skeletons excavated inOxford in 2008.
the account by William of Jumièges, it also suggested that civilians were targeted in the attack
:
The same year, King Ethelred gave orders for the massacre of all the Danes of every age and both sexes, in consequence of their having conspired to deprive him and his nobles of their life and kingdom and reduce the whole of England under their dominion.
Reminded me of the person in the news.
CCCubbon wrote: "I was reading Alice Roberts latest book Crypt yesterday and was surprised to learn that a very fishy diet eaten by someone might affect the radiocarbon dating of their bones many centuries later.When they were examining the remains of Richard III they at first thought the dating was too old or Richard but then futher investigation showed exactly that.
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK....
Mod
I'm re-reading a book of short stories by one of my favourite writers, Barbara Kingsolver, Homeland and Other Stories. She is so good! Families, relationships, life choices, social questions ...
I've been having a little trouble with my 'go-to' writers of late, as the books I had available were either a touch disappointing (those I've read, or part-read) or unappetising for whatever reason. (More on those books when I get over this mega-cold, which has transitioned into a cough.)So, a little word of praise, then, for the excellent and - to now - never disappointing Claudia Piñeiro whose A Little Luck is just brilliantly written. I'm only part-way in, but you can tell it's going to be quite a journey. I suppose there are some parallels with Anne Tyler - great unshowy style, subtle hints, psychological insight - and a new cast of characters each time - though Piñeiro is more consistently dark in her subject matter - often 'crime', though not always. I don't even know what this one is, yet, though there are heavy hints at some life-changing accident in the past.
Thanks, too, to Frances Riddle for such a fluent translation.
This had been on the TBR list for a while, but I balked at the cost - even the ebook isn't cheap for a short book - but it was well worth it.
Mod
What links the three is
the long, often violent, community-rending—but for women, in particular, sometimes empowering—Phelps Dodge Strike in the copper towns of Arizona.(from https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/...)
Holding the Line was written early in her writing career. She got
an assignment (from several news publications) that sent me out from my home in Tucson to a constellation of small, strike-gripped mining towns strung out across southern Arizona.
Finally, writing the newspaper articles was not enough, and she wrote the book which the people she'd been meeting had already decided she was writing.
The conflict lasted roughly eighteen months, between June 1983 and December 1984. ... I listened for more than a year to the stories of striking miners and their stunningly courageous wives, sisters, daughters. Sometimes I had to visit them in jail. They suffered outrageous injustices.
She writes
Holding the Line was a watershed event for me because it taught me to pay attention: to know the place where I lived. Since then I've written other books ... One of these books, a novel, is specifically placed in a mining town where people grow peaches, mix their metaphors, celebrate el Dia de los Muertos, and have to contend with a mining company that pollutes their groundwater with sulfuric acid — all of which I learned about from direct experience while following the Phelps Dodge strike.
This novel is Animal Dreams which I mentioned above.
Mod
Scenes from South Africa that shock the international conscience — destitute, dusty shanty towns where Black children grow up in the shadow of a privileged life they cannot touch — are not so different from what Arizona mining towns looked like when Harry Truman was president, or, for that matter, John Kennedy. As late as the 1960s, segregation here was absolute. It extended to housing, schools, movie theaters, and social clubs. ... As one woman who grew up here put it, "There was a separate everything." In Ajo, Mexican-Americans were allowed to swim in the public pool once a week, on Wednesdays, just before the water was changed.
They did not have access to the more skilled mining jobs. Unsurprisingly, much of the labor leadership ... came from Mexican-Americans.
Started reading Paul Prestons The Last Days of the Spanish Republic detailing how the Casado coup in March 1939, virtually destroyed the last embers of the Republican forces in face of the advances of General Franco and his armyDefeatist generals, anti-communist hysteria and a western european silence and lack of support all led to the defeat of the Republicans in April 1939
Preston uses spanish language sources, including testimonies of Republican Generals at Francoist trials after the war who sabotaged republican advances and were working to end the war as quickly as possible
I also found two full colour photos by Nazi photographer Hugo Jaeger of the liberation of Madrid by Francoist forces in May 1939, as he called it. i will add two images to photo section, reduced in size as they are full screen, brilliant colour
Gpfr wrote: "Why I Am a Danger to the Public, the last story in Barbara Kingsolver's Homeland and Other Stories, about a woman imprisoned after being on the picket line in a strike, has sent me to ..."amazing to think its 40 years since the Miners Strikes...
I’m deep into Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth. Will report in a few days.
Also catching up on back numbers of NYRB. There’s an interesting looking book on the varying reactions of German literary writers to the arrival of the Nazis in power. Only one, it seems, immediately foresaw what was pending, Joseph Roth. The book is called February 1933: The Winter of Literature, by Uwe Wittstock.
Also catching up on back numbers of NYRB. There’s an interesting looking book on the varying reactions of German literary writers to the arrival of the Nazis in power. Only one, it seems, immediately foresaw what was pending, Joseph Roth. The book is called February 1933: The Winter of Literature, by Uwe Wittstock.
Russell wrote: "I’m deep into Jack Sheppard by William Ainsworth. Will report in a few days.Also catching up on back numbers of NYRB. There’s an interesting looking book on the varying reactions of German litera..."
i like the sound of the Wittstock book, on my pile i have a book about authors during the Nazi times and their "inner immigration" but cant remember the title
Keilsons novel of 1930s Germany, The Death Of The Adversarywhich i am currently reading suggests forewarnings but was written during WW2
Now reading the latest in the Charleton House Mystery series. It is obviously based on Chatsworth House. Totally in the cosy mystery bracket but I rather enjoy the characters so don't worry about the plot believability. Sophie and Mark our heroine/hero are looking over the preparations for the reopening of a local museum when Sophie finds the body of the benefactor wrapped in a sheet and stuffed in an Egyptian sarcophagus. As you do!
Gpfr wrote: "A snippet from Barbara Kingsolver's Holding the Line on the miner's strike of 1983-4:Scenes from South Africa that shock the international conscience — destitute, dusty shanty towns where Black ..."
This reminded me of my brother-in-law - now a deceased graduate of the Mine Maritime Academy, years of experience on Texaco tankers traveling the Arabian sea before becoming Chief of the Atlantic Pilots when the US owned the Panama Canal. He was such a bigot. Couldn't stand the lazy Panamians. Never figured out what the Panamians knew - that there was no upward mobility for them.
I have to check my credit card and its balance because I am contemplating book purchase from Blackwells - newly out - https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article...Looks good!
After last week's leaky hot water cylinder I am now pleased to say I have central heating and hot water again. 😀
giveusaclue wrote: "After last week's leaky hot water cylinder I am now pleased to say I have central heating and hot water again. 😀"Good! After our latest emergency when the gas was cut off due to a leak - or a 'leak' (it was tiny, I couldn't smell a thing) we were reconnected by rerouting the gas pipe. The plumber, though, first tried to find the leaky pipe by digging holes in the concrete. He may come back today to fill in the holes - if we're lucky!
Mod
It's so splendid when you get it back, isn't it :)
Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "After last week's leaky hot water cylinder I am now pleased to say I have central heating and hot water again. 😀"It's so splendid when you get it back, isn't it :)"
Absolutely. And I guess scarlet won't be using that plumber again!
An odd feature of the very readable The Last Days of the Spanish Republic is the obvious pro-communist stance of Paul Preston, the distinguished expert on 20thc Spain.I am almost reading the book by questioning every pro-communist reference. I am suprised to find a supposedly semi-academic volume so biased and that nobody seems to have called it out. He even manages to suggest the communist purges ordered by Stalin in Catalonia were to create a "centralised government" in the Republican zone, which is really an odd take on cynical, violent assasination and killings of supposed Allies
I still am enjoying the remarkable focus on a few months in 1939. He describes the Cortes meeting in a cold castle near Figueras, the MPs in coats and a sense of the end of the Republican cause evident.
hope you indulge in a nice deep, hot bath clue, you've earned it :)
The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson(1959), is the starkest and most intellectual novel about Hitler i have read so far.Hitler is never named and is almost absent from the 150 odd pages i have read so far, he is almost 98% off-page but what he did and created is told by a young Jewish man, who slowly observes society beginning to rot under the jackboot.
Its intellectual depth focuses on doubt, fear and questions, the narrator is no violent anti-Nazi activist or even a quiet organiser of protest, he feels disgust, apathy and sometimes bravery but is mostly lost in the questions he tries to confront about our need for conflict, for enemies/adversaries and how it weakens humanity for the worst
Told in very readable language, deliberate and very German, it is almost like a fictional witness testament to where Germany went wrong, though Jews have not been mentioned once and Hitler or "B" only thrice.
Greenfairy wrote: "hope you indulge in a nice deep, hot bath clue, you've earned it :)"Ha, if only. Getting out of the bath is a bit beyond me at the moment. But the hot shower was good.
AB76 wrote: " The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson(1959), is the starkest and most intellectual novel about Hitler i have read so far."This sounds interesting, I'll keep an eye out for it next time I'm in a bookstore.
Berkley wrote: "AB76 wrote: " The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson(1959), is the starkest and most intellectual novel about Hitler i have read so ..."i think you will like it, its very understated too, not a lot happens but every encounter reveals a little more of the situation at hand
. a chilling piece in the middle of the novel finds the narrator at the house of a girl he likes and he sits and has to listen to a young Nazi telling his mates how he desecrated a jewish cemetery, in detail. the narrrator sits in disgust, with himself and the events described, they dont know he is a jewish and he does not tell them. at the end of the story, the girl laughingly asks her brother if he has been on one of these "sprees".
I have been enjoying Noah Feldman's Scorpions. The Scorpions in question are four of Franklin Roosevelt's appointees to the US Supreme Court: Justices Frankfurter, Black, Douglas and Jackson. Though all supported Roosevelt's New Deal, with its accent on the central government's initiatives, over the years they developed very different approaches to the law, and conflicting views on the limits of presidential-- and the Court's-- power. This account feeds my fascination with the 1930s. This book would make a fine companion to Jeff Shesol's Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. Shesol's book carries us from the coming of Roosevelt's New Deal, to 1941, when Roosevelt's frenemy, Chief Justice Hughes, retired.
Feldman picks up with the arrival of four new justices, and FDR's promotion of Harlan Fiske Stone, a brilliant legal academic, from associate justice to Chief. (Leaving some Democrats seething, I might add.)
Shesol has more insight into the politics of the time, and the Court's adjustment to an age of vastly increased government power. Feldman avoids US legal jargon, and focuses on the characters driving his narrative.
For those who liked to watch the barn owls.The parent birds have been visiting the box again - I have been watching them this morning preening themselves. Here’s the link again in anticipation…..
https://www.lenpicktrust.org.uk/
They’re fast asleep now 10.28 am
AB76 wrote: "...he tries to confront... our need for conflict, for enemies/adversaries and how it weakens humanity for the worst"Sadly reminiscent of the approach taken in recent years by many (most?) Tories and their 'friends' in the press, with attacks on just about anyone but especially immigrants, 'the woke' or - if you are a Trussite conspiracy theorist - the "Deep State", whatever that is. We see the same sort of game being employed by Trump in the USA - could Trump even exist without enemies? Putin started a wholly unnecessary war - as a distraction? And so on.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "...he tries to confront... our need for conflict, for enemies/adversaries and how it weakens humanity for the worst"Sadly reminiscent of the approach taken in recent years by many (m..."
yes, the right have been in thrall to Carl Schmitt, the Nazi legal theorist, for a good 20 years,he was very keen on the need for an "enemy" or the "other", to create conflict.
it reminds me of the basic leftist message being "for the greater good", as opposed to the right wing message " for the few". In a religious sense the Tories exist in the world of the calvinist "elect", where some people are destined for a world of choice and individual pleasure but not through good works but through the worship of dirty mammon...
CCCubbon wrote: "For those who liked to watch the barn owls.The parent birds have been visiting the box again - I have been watching them this morning preening themselves. Here’s the link again in anticipation…..
..."
lovely, my father is lambing right now (4 boy lambs) and a barn owl is nesting in a box in one of the fields..
Jack Sheppard – William Ainsworth (1839)
I finished the two volumes sooner than I thought. This best-selling historical novel is indeed a fun read. There are house-breakers and thief-takers, an honest citizen with a shrew for a wife, a long-lost heir to a landed fortune, and a lovely young woman whose eyes “rivalled the stars for lustre.”
Ainsworth constructs a lively if increasingly implausible plot, and many colourful scenes and other characters, including a dastardly Jonathan Wild (more of a caricature, I thought, than the really villainous Jonathan Wild of Fielding). As we are for a long while in 1715, Mohocks and Jacobites also feature.
You do have to get used to his antiquated language. It is not a pastiche of Addison and Steele in the way carried off so brilliantly by Thackeray in Henry Esmond. Ainsworth just has a liking for words such as celerity instead of speed, vociferate instead of say aloud, and subterranean communication instead of tunnel. As related by Zadie Smith in The Fraud, this stylistic manner later becomes deathly ponderous, and his sales sink like lead.
The theme is of the traditional kind: blood determines destiny. So a person born a gent can’t help being a gent, even if present appearances are against him. Ditto the son of a notorious robber.
When you open the book you think you’re somehow in a Dickens, because the frontispiece is a drawing by the unmistakable hand of George Cruickshank. The Fraud shows Ainsworth’s former friend going off his rocker, publishing accusations that Ainsworth was not in fact the author of his novels. I would post a copy of the picture, only I can't work out how to do it.
I finished the two volumes sooner than I thought. This best-selling historical novel is indeed a fun read. There are house-breakers and thief-takers, an honest citizen with a shrew for a wife, a long-lost heir to a landed fortune, and a lovely young woman whose eyes “rivalled the stars for lustre.”
Ainsworth constructs a lively if increasingly implausible plot, and many colourful scenes and other characters, including a dastardly Jonathan Wild (more of a caricature, I thought, than the really villainous Jonathan Wild of Fielding). As we are for a long while in 1715, Mohocks and Jacobites also feature.
You do have to get used to his antiquated language. It is not a pastiche of Addison and Steele in the way carried off so brilliantly by Thackeray in Henry Esmond. Ainsworth just has a liking for words such as celerity instead of speed, vociferate instead of say aloud, and subterranean communication instead of tunnel. As related by Zadie Smith in The Fraud, this stylistic manner later becomes deathly ponderous, and his sales sink like lead.
The theme is of the traditional kind: blood determines destiny. So a person born a gent can’t help being a gent, even if present appearances are against him. Ditto the son of a notorious robber.
When you open the book you think you’re somehow in a Dickens, because the frontispiece is a drawing by the unmistakable hand of George Cruickshank. The Fraud shows Ainsworth’s former friend going off his rocker, publishing accusations that Ainsworth was not in fact the author of his novels. I would post a copy of the picture, only I can't work out how to do it.
I have enjoyed my first edition of the TLS as a subscriber, have decided to try the 12 issues for £12 deal. Its mainly due to my local WH Smiths not stocking the TLS for over 6 months, i used to pick up occasional copies for when i went on vacay.The LRB and NYRB are much better of course but are getting thinner and thinner by the year. The LRB is always finished in 7-8 days even if i space it out, the NYRB takes longer but the latest one is another advert filled, under 40 pager, with adverts deducted ofc
Its a shame the thick old days are gone but i guess digital subs get more...possibly?
Russell wrote: "Jack Sheppard – William Ainsworth (1839)I finished the two volumes sooner than I thought. This best-selling historical novel is indeed a fun read. There are house-breakers and thief-takers, an ho..."
i love addisson and steele, i first read about them in Macauleys superb history of england from 1630-1720 and then found to my delight a volume of their work in a second hand bookshop...about a decade ago
Russell wrote: "Ainsworth just has a liking for words such as celerity instead of speed, vociferate instead of say aloud, and subterranean communication instead of tunnel. ."I have to admit to enjoying authors who use what I tend to think of, ever since 7th grade, as "vocabulary words". One of the things I still recall most vividly from New Arabian Nights is one of the rare uses of the word "truculent" and the only time I have encountered the word "transpontine".
If you can't beat them, join them.This month I went to my shelf of "Wordsworth Mystery & the Supernatural" editions and, like the majority of readers here, am now reading crime novels featuring series characters.
I started with The Four Just Men (in The Complete Four Just Men), continued with The House Without a Key (in A Charlie Chan Omnibus) and have just finished A Bid for Fortune or Dr Nikola's Vendetta (in Dr. Nikola Master Criminal).
This last novel, published in 1895, started me wondering whether Guy Boothby's Dr. Nikola is the first villain to feature as a recurring character in a series of novels or stories.
Nikola has a wide range of underworld connections, like Professor Moriarty, as well as the ability to be several steps ahead of his opponents. He also anticipates at least two cinematic villains: his mesmeric powers (as well as his honorific) make him a direct ancestor of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse; and his inseparable feline companion (albeit black, rather than white) calls to mind the Blofeld of the James Bond films.
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "Jack Sheppard – William Ainsworth ..."... i love addisson and steele..."
Me too. I’d forgotten that bit of Macaulay. I shall have to re-visit.
Years ago I found a lovely old HB volume of Days with Sir Roger de Coverley, with charming illustrations by Hugh Thomson. You wouldn’t think £5 could give you so much pleasure.
Dick Steele figures very believably in Esmond.
Me too. I’d forgotten that bit of Macaulay. I shall have to re-visit.
Years ago I found a lovely old HB volume of Days with Sir Roger de Coverley, with charming illustrations by Hugh Thomson. You wouldn’t think £5 could give you so much pleasure.
Dick Steele figures very believably in Esmond.
Bill wrote: "Russell wrote: "Ainsworth just has a liking for words such as celerity...."
I have to admit to enjoying authors who use what I tend to think of, ever since 7th grade, as "vocabulary words". One of the things I still recall most vividly from New Arabian Nights..."
I don't know that RLS at all. Yet another for the TBR list.
The problem with Ainsworth's use of older language is that in his hands it feels self-conscious and unnatural, always trying for a grander effect.
I have to admit to enjoying authors who use what I tend to think of, ever since 7th grade, as "vocabulary words". One of the things I still recall most vividly from New Arabian Nights..."
I don't know that RLS at all. Yet another for the TBR list.
The problem with Ainsworth's use of older language is that in his hands it feels self-conscious and unnatural, always trying for a grander effect.
AB76 wrote: "An odd feature of the very readable The Last Days of the Spanish Republic is the obvious pro-communist stance of Paul Preston, the distinguished expert on 20thc Spain.I am almost ..."
You might try Stanley G. Payne's works on the Spanish Civil War. If I recall, he doesn't tilt his account toward the Left. You might also be interested in The Grand Camouflage: The Communist Conspiracy in the Spanish Civil War by Burnett Bolloten.
Mod
Have you read Hugh Thomas? His The Spanish Civil War is excellent.
It was background reading for our university module on committed literature in the thirties — I've still got it.
He was an interesting teacher, too. In my first year he taught a module on the slave trade. Actually, the module was historiography, so it was about the documents related to the slave trade. Fascinating stuff.
AB76 wrote: "the right wing message " for the few". In a religious sense the Tories exist in the world of the calvinist "elect", where some people are destined for a world of choice and individual pleasure but not through good works but through the worship of dirty mammon....."The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
... as the hymn has it.
Bill wrote: "This last novel, published in 1895, started me wondering whether Guy Boothby's Dr. Nikola is the first villain to feature as a recurring character in a series of novels or stories.Nikola has a wide range of underworld connections, like Professor Moriarty..."
Well, Moriarty first appeared in:
...the short story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", first published in The Strand Magazine in December 1893. He also plays a role in the final Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear, but without a direct appearance. Holmes mentions Moriarty in five other stories: "The Adventure of the Empty House", "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter", "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client", and "His Last Bow". (Wikipedia)
and so predates Nikola by a couple of years... unless you feel his appearances in several works is too fleeting.
Russell wrote: "The problem with Ainsworth's use of older language is that in his hands it feels self-conscious and unnatural, always trying for a grander effect."This is a tricky skill to handle when writing anything set in the past - some screenplays go the whole hog and appear ludicrous when they overdo the 'hey-nonny-no' language, whereas others fail by introducing modern slang which seems equally misplaced. The best - IMO, of course - manage to balance the use of some period terms with fairly 'correct' modern speech, avoiding what will probably prove to be short-term usages. That way, the dialogue flows naturally with odd reminders that it is a period piece.
(The 1960s 'Maigret' series which I've been watching recently does this well for a setting in a foreign country: Maigret is referred to as 'patron' by the other cops, and we get 'monsieur', 'madame', 'mademoiselle' etc. - but most of the speech is in standard English. )
A Little Luck by Claudia Piñero (trans. Frances Riddle)Another excellent novel from Argentine Piñeiro, who is definitely proving to be one of my favourite contemporary authors.
The first couple of pages give us a clear hint of where the story is going... cars approach a railway crossing; the gate is down, but no train appears; cars start to weave around the gate to cross the tracks..
We can all guess from that what the key event will be, so that's not a spoiler. What the novel does, brilliantly, is not only to describe the events but the consequences for the protagonists. The author has an almost unrivalled ability to pin down fleeting and sometimes ambiguous or contradictory emotions - her ability to empathise with her characters is outstanding.
In other hands, this could have maybe turned into a 'heartwarming'* story. Piñeiro is too good for that - her gaze is neither cold nor excessively drippy - just clear.
*'heartwarming' = sentimental - whenever I see a book or film so described, I run a mile!
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "An odd feature of the very readable The Last Days of the Spanish Republic is the obvious pro-communist stance of Paul Preston, the distinguished expert on 20thc Spain...."
i've read all the greats about the civil war except for Beevor, it was a huge interest of mine in my late teens, via Orwells Homage to Catalonia
that bolleton work is new to me though, thanks!
my sympathies lie with the anarchists in Catalonia, so really a section of the Nationalist movement. i have no time for what Stalin did to the Nationalists with his purges and violence, as regards the Socialists, they should have my sympathy but i will never forgive them for turning barcelona back to right of centre policies after the purges and ending the first large anarchist experiment in history. of course this isnt anarchism as the right or extreme left like to portray it, it is a form of collective syndicalism and idealism, not chaos!
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Death's Other Kingdom (other topics)
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was Kangaroo not going well?
i loved its descriptions of 1920s Australia(the Sydney suburb descriptions may the best literature on that subject), its plotting and characters, took me over a decade to find a copy and i finally read it about 4-5 years ago