What are we reading? 25/03/2024

[Berkley]

Bill wrote: "
Though I’ve read a good deal of praise for Proust without particularly seeking it out (not always, I admit, from critics I admire), I somehow doubt my own ability to carry through with a reading.

I am curious about what inspires other readers to undertake it.

Do you want to read the novel because of its general status a modern classic? Or is it as a French classic in particular that it interests you? Have the reports of specific readers or critics had an influence?

As I asked @Russell of his situation before his first reading: How much are you conversant with French culture and history (particularly that of the period covered by Proust)? Do you have any knowledge of the French language? "

For a long time I thought only that I might try Proust at some point just because he was such a very big name in the history of modern (or modernist, if you prefer) western literature, a subject of much interest to me in a general way, but there was little motivation beyond that more or less vague feeling.

Then, a few years ago, I began to read a fair bit of 18th and especially 19th-C French literature (along with other things from the same period), and thus French culture and history became more familiar to me - though there are still large gaps, even within that era - and I became increasingly interested in it.

At the same time, I started to make a more serious effort to improve my French reading level (something I'd wanted to do anyway, living in an officially bi-lingual country, even apart from literature), and that gave me more confidence in trying at least some of the shorter pieces in the original language - again, I'm far from fluid and often don't know whether I can cope with a given book in the original until I've tried it for a few pages or a chapter or two.

So all those factors have combined to make me more determined to read Proust than I had been up to, perhaps 5 or 6 years ago. I have a feeling he'll be a little beyond me in French and I already have most of the English translations so I'll at least start with those..

I'm making one last-for-now run through the 19th-C in my general reading before taking a more definitive plunge into the 20th so I may try to seek out anything I've missed up to now that would help me better appreciate Proust when I get to him - suggestions are welcome!

[[deleted user]]

There must be hundreds of volumes on the ancient historians. I recently came across a nice copy of The Historians of Greece and Rome by Stephen Usher from 1969, which has a chapter on each in turn, also covering the minor writers. I’m enjoying the first one, on Herodotus, and will move on to Thucydides, but will have to pause there until I have read Xenophon. It is well written, and feels solidly sensible, not claiming any dramatic new insights or revelations.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "you're from UK originally arent you Russell? trying to remember, i think we had a where we were when JFK was shot(which excludes me, too young)) and you were in UK? or ..."

I was in the US when JFK was shot. Our 5th grade math teacher appeared, leaning against the classroom door. He was pale. "The President of the United States has just been shot."

[Robert]

giveusaclue wrote: "Not literature, but having read a book about the American Civil war fairly recently, and remarked on how much of a shambles the Union army seemed to be in a lot of the time, I have just finished wa..."

Lincoln rose from manual laborer and adventurous youth-- imagine taking a raft of lumber down the Mississippi to Louisiana and selling it-- to success in a learned profession. It's been pointed out that, in a generation where US politicians often did their best to sound like Roman senators, Lincoln spoke in his own voice. As Garry Wills suggested, unsuccessful poets-- like Lincoln-- often develop an interesting prose style. They've learned to hunt for the right word. "The Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea." That was his remark on the fall of Vicksburg, which opened the Mississippi to Union shipping.
The best short example of Lincoln's prose is probably his Second Inaugural Address, a summary of the beginning of the war that segues into a prayer and meditation.
There has been some controversy over Lincoln's attitude toward slavery, though he never seems to have regarded it as anything better than a sort of racket. "You work and earn bread and I'll eat it." The best book I've seen on this is "The Fiery Trial."
The US Navy also hunted slave ships before the Civil War.
The planters of Britain's West Indies did very well out of slavery for quite a long time, and, as Kenneth Clark remarked, "the vested interests were enormous." Of course, none of the profits were disgorged. It is interesting to consider how easily Britain could have abolished slavery if millions of slaves lived and worked there, and the economies of different regions profited so much from it as the American ones did.

[Robert]

scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "PM was 1940s New York's Popular Front paper. This supports the theory that the buzz phrase came from the left..."

Again, I don't buy your argument - who would invent a 'self-derogat..."

I am reminded of my late wife's patron saint- Jude- at this point. I do find it ironic that these Stainless Steel Socialists were so indignant at this alleged FBI name-calling in 1943 while forgiving the heartless bastard in the Kremlin, who was so ready to write off the Spanish Civil War, and the whole anti-Nazi line, in August 1939.

[AB76]

Great set pf posts by Robert, Bill and Berkley, excellent stuff!

I enjoyed reading Poe's review of Drake and Hallecks poetry last night too, am going to google both of them in a few secs. I am always interested in american writing from the colonial days to roughly pre civil war and Poe is in that period. (I also have De Crevecour, Irving, Bartram, Longstreet and Thoreau on the pile)

My main 18thc american reading was Jeffersons Notes on Virginia and the Federalist Papers. I have also read Brockden Brown(early 19c) and Irvings Tales from the Alhambra.

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "PM was 1940s New York's Popular Front paper. This supports the theory that the buzz phrase came from the left..."

Again, I don't buy your argument - who would in..."

spot on....Stalin deserves a special place in hell for what he did in the Spanish Civil War. The undermining of a diverse political movement in the early war leading to the vicious repression of the POUM(which Orwell witnessed) and the removal of Anarchist influence, usually by murder. Then to cap it all, the vile little sod crept into bed with Hitler. The Soviet army watching the Germans destroy Warsaw in 1944 is another piece of evil from Stalin

[giveusaclue]

Robert wrote: "The US Navy also hunted slave ships before the Civil War.
The planters of Britain's West Indies did very well out of slavery for quite a long time, and, as Kenneth Clark remarked, "the vested interests were enormous." Of course, none of the profits were disgorged. It is interesting to consider how easily Britain could have abolished slavery if millions of slaves lived and worked there, and the economies of different regions profited so much from it as the American ones did."

Thanks for replying Robert. You are of absolutely correct.
The world also seems to have forgotten the devastating effect of the Spanish in South America. But, of course, slavery goes back to the beginning of human life. And slill goes on today.

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "Robert wrote: "The US Navy also hunted slave ships before the Civil War.
The planters of Britain's West Indies did very well out of slavery for quite a long time, and, as Kenneth Clark remarked, "t..."

the classic Cuban novel Cecilia Verdes by Cirilio Valverde(1882), is set in Havana as the British navy were forcibly supressing the smuggling of slaves from africa into Cuba and in a recurring theme displays the anger of the merchant class for what it is doing to trade. It is interesting that after the British abolition of slavery how long Brazil, Cuba and other places kept trading, well into the late 19thc

[[deleted user]]

Berkley wrote: "...I'm making one last-for-now run through the 19th-C in my general reading before taking a more definitive plunge into the 20th so I may try to seek out anything I've missed up to now that would help me better appreciate Proust when I get to him - suggestions are welcome!"

You might find it interesting to look at Monsieur Proust’s Library by Anka Muhlstein (2012). She has done her research, and I learnt quite a lot about his reading, from childhood onwards.

To explain why certain works are relevant she does spend a lot of time summarizing events in A la Recherche, much more than she needed to, imo. Those parts become a bit laboured, and could be skipped.

[Berkley]

Robert wrote: "
I am reminded of my late wife's patron saint- Jude- at this point. I do find it ironic that these Stainless Steel Socialists were so indignant at this alleged FBI name-calling in 1943 while forgiving the heartless bastard in the Kremlin, who was so ready to write off the Spanish Civil War, and the whole anti-Nazi line, in August 1939."

This is better, a little more open and straightforward. But - without sarcasm - I sense you're still holding back a little. I'd genuinely like to hear what you're trying to say - and if you feel it should already be obvious, put it down to my thickheadedness and accept my apologies.

Is it that all or most of the foreigners who went to Spain to join the fight against Franco were Stalinists? Or just the Americans who in your view called themselves or falsely claim to have been labelled 'premature anti-fascists' ? Is it that socialism and Stalinism are more or less the same thing?

I'm not trying to be provocative, I'd honestly like to hear what you've been getting at with these comments. Assume I know nothing, that I never heard of the Spanish Civil War. What's the point you've been trying to make?

[Berkley]

Russell wrote: "
You might find it interesting to look at Monsieur Proust’s Library by Anka Muhlstein (2012). She has done her research, and I learnt quite a lot about his reading, from childhood onwards.

To explain why certain works are relevant she does spend a lot of time summarizing events in A la Recherche, much more than she needed to, imo. Those parts become a bit laboured, and could be skipped."

Thanks, Russell, I might have a look for that. I'll take your advice and skip the parts where she talks about A la Recherche in detail.

[Tam]

AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "Bill wrote: "Russell wrote: "I suppose quite a lot for a non-French person. From age 15 to 17 I did just three subjects in school – English, History and French...."

Wow. To the ext..."

I have read the first two volumes of 'a la recherche de temps perdu', I liked those, a bit, but my interest waned after that. but I read these a very long time ago. A few years back there was an opportunity to hear the whole, as a dramatisation on Radio 4, which was, much as they did later, with Ulysses, held over a weekend. The dramatic version was well done, I think, but I found the last but one volume very trying. I did not care one jot about the characters, and the social climbing that was endemic of those particular times. I appreciated its place, as a seminal work about looking at perceptions of societies from multiple points of view, and time frames. I did very much like Swans Way, but not so much the other volumes, as I am a somewhat critical, but still a fan, of much 'modernist' output in the 20th century.

I did also struggle with reading 'Ulysses' so perhaps I'm not the one to ask about it, but again I found the dramatisation much easier to comprehend, and have some feelings of empathy towards it. I thought you might enjoy this though... Proust as a cartoon!...

https://i.postimg.cc/pXNtYpRt/6939362...

[Bill]

Tam wrote: "I did not care one jot about the characters, and the social climbing that was endemic of those particular times."

I've received the impression that the social hierarchy, and various characters' positions and positioning within it were a not insignificant element of the novel. This is one of the reasons I felt that I would not be able to make my way through it.

I really have no feeling for such things, either in real life or in art, either with aristocratic titles (is a duke higher than an earl, does a baron trump a count?) or markers of schooling and lifestyle (as in John O'Hara).

[CCCubbon]

I’m finding it very difficult to read for more than a short period before my teary eyes defeat. This makes for very slow progress through Tana French’s The Hunter, sequel to The Searcher.
It is set in the remote Irish village with many of the same characters and one feels as if there too. I can feel the tension slowly building in this good book. My slow reading is like rationing oneself to a square of chocolate a day.
I make up for it by reading short poems and articles with breaks and have found my recipe for nutty bread which is on its first rise now.

[AB76]

CCCubbon wrote: "I’m finding it very difficult to read for more than a short period before my teary eyes defeat. This makes for very slow progress through Tana French’s The Hunter, sequel to The Searcher.
It is se..."

thats a shame about your eyes CCC, is there no medication that can lessen the problems, or are you already taking some?

[CCCubbon]

Been battling for seven years now, don’t think there’s much more that can be done but I can still see after a fashion and am grateful for that.
The eye clinic at the hospital is always crowded,so many needing help it takes ages to see a consultant. Last time there a couple of weeks ago there was a young lad, 4-5 I guess, being led around with reins - who am I to grumble.

[AB76]

CCCubbon wrote: "Been battling for seven years now, don’t think there’s much more that can be done but I can still see after a fashion and am grateful for that.
The eye clinic at the hospital is always crowded,so m..."

i admire your approach to it CCC!

[scarletnoir]

Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "PM was 1940s New York's Popular Front paper. This supports the theory that the buzz phrase came from the left..."

Again, I don't buy your argument - who would in..."

In other words, you have no evidence for your assertion.

Please don't think that I have any time at all for Stalin - I don't. But it is important in this world of 'fake news' to justify what we say, rather than make wild and unsubstantiated assertions based on political bias.

Let's try to do better than 'Trump Social' in this forum!

Edit: I think we may assume that many of the leftists besmirched by this phrase lost any admiration they may have felt for Stalin in the 1950s and 60s, following the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But in 1943, not that much was known about what was going on in Stalin's Russia... people can judge things differently with hindsight, but the information available at the time would have been different. Besides, the phrase was used if I understand correctly indiscriminately for anyone who fought on the Republican side in the civil war - including for POUM, who were obliterated by the Stalinists. So it's safe to say there weren't many Stalin admirers in that group!

[scarletnoir]

giveusaclue wrote: "Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans. Around 2,000 British sailors died on their mission of freeing slaves with the West Africa Squadron."

Fascinating - I knew nothing at all about this - so the British did have something to be proud of, after all.

In the meantime - the East India Company continued its asset striping depredations in India and the Far East. Go figure!

[scarletnoir]

Berkley wrote: "I wonder if at some point this became a phrase that was "taken over" by some members of the group it was aimed at in a derogatory way, or at least if there was an attempt along those lines."

Oh, indeed there was... it was such an absurd phrase. My point is simply that it surely must have been coined by someone on the right, but was so ridiculous that it was easy to parody:

By the summer of 1943 the term had become the subject of political humor. Red Kann, a progressive voice in the Hollywood trade newspaper The Motion Picture Herald, included in his July 25 column an anecdote about an “actor, interested in liberal causes on his own time,” who was denied permission to shoot a picture on a military base. The alleged reason was that the actor had been labeled a “Premature anti-Fascist” on an Army dossier. Since Kann did not give any other information, the story is probably apocryphal. But it was the first allegation, in print, that the Army used the term “premature antifascist” in its official documents—an important, though possibly incorrect, part of the narrative. Ironically, at no point does Kann claim that the actor was a Communist, socialist, or Spanish Civil War veteran. He was simply “interested in liberal causes.” Three months after the first public use of the phrase, in other words, “premature antifascism” had already expanded its meaning to include broader discrimination against liberals and leftists.

In those first years, premature antifascism was used as a form of identification, as satire, and—importantly—critique. Liberal syndicated columnist Samuel Grafton wrote in March 1944 that “everyone has heard the many FBI investigator jokes, about the intense fear on the part of several of our government bureaus lest they make a slip and hire someone who was too hot an anti-fascist, too soon, a ‘premature anti-fascist.” Grafton’s column was not about the U.S. government’s discrimination about Spanish war veterans, Communists, socialists, or liberals—it was a scathing critique of U.S. policy towards France. The column was typical in its use of “premature antifascism” towards the end of the war. The phrase could refer specifically to veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, but it was also used by liberals, trade unionists, and Communists to refer to antifascism in general as a political orientation in the 1930s. In March 1946, Washington state Democratic congressman Hugh DeLacy gave a speech in New York City in which he related the story of a professor, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, who “can’t get a job simply because Martin Dies [the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee] said that if you were against Hitler and Mussolini before December 7, 1941, you were a premature anti-Fascist.” The broader political sentiment mattered more than service in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

https://albavolunteer.org/2024/02/pre...

[scarletnoir]

Berkley wrote: "all those factors have combined to make me more determined to read Proust than I had been up to, perhaps 5 or 6 years ago. I have a feeling he'll be a little beyond me in French and I already have most of the English translations so I'll at least start with those."

This sounds sensible! Madame has read all of 'À la recherche du temps perdu', but then she's French - that's cheating! I've only read a brief piece in English - 'Swann in love'.

My current experience of struggling through 'Évariste' by my favourite living author François-Henri Désérable is that it takes a lot of time, effort and commitment to get through anything other than straightforward narrative in a language not your own. It may be, though, that Proust relies less on historical sources than does Désérable, though both use literary references. That should, with any luck, speed things up.... Best wishes for a successful and enjoyable experience.

[scarletnoir]

Robert wrote: ".The planters of Britain's West Indies did very well out of slavery for quite a long time, and, as Kenneth Clark remarked, "the vested interests were enormous.""

Indeed. I have read somewhere that the abolition was only achieved at the cost of 'remunerating' all the slave owners etc. to stop their trade in or use of slaves. So, they had to be paid off - slavery wasn't just banned at the stroke of a pen.

[giveusaclue]

scarletnoir wrote: "Fascinating - I knew nothing at all about this - so the British did have something to be proud of, after all.

In the meantime - the East India Company continued its asset striping depredations in India and the Far East. Go figure!"


The Black Hole of Calcutta if I remember rightly from school history lessons?

Meanwhile, for those who enjoyed the Wolf Hall Trilogy and the televised version
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024...

BBC’s Wolf Hall returns with diverse cast of Tudor courtiers
Conclusion of Dame Hilary Mantel’s novels casts historically white characters with actors of different ethnicities

[Bill]

I just learned that writer John Barth died yesterday at age 93.

I can't quite say that he was the last of the midcentury American postmodernists, as Robert Coover and Thomas Pynchon are still around. They were the authors that defined US literature in my youth, whether I actually read them at the time or not. I rather belatedly caught up with Barth, reading The End of the Road, Lost in the Funhouse, and Giles Goat-Boy. The Sot-Weed Factor has long been TBR.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Paul]

Bill wrote: "I just learned that writer John Barth died yesterday at age 93.

I can't quite say that he was the last of the midcentury American postmodernists, as Robert Coover and Thomas Pynchon are still arou..."

Barth is one of those authors that have been percolating in my To Be Read list a lot lately, particularly in light of my recent reads of Pynchon, Gass, Barthelme and Coover. All of whom I liked to varying degrees. The Sot Weed Factor is too wrist-snapping and a much earlier stab at Giles Goat-Boy ended very quickly. Lost In The Funhosue might be the best starting point for me. If he can't entrance me in the short term, like hell am I giving him the three weeks it would likely take to tackle his longer works.

[Bill]

Paul wrote: "The Sot Weed Factor is too wrist-snapping"

All the Barth books I own are in mass-market paperbacks, so my wrists are safe.

In the heyday of my youthful reading, all those authors were available in mass-market editions. Even William Gaddis' The Recognitions was issued in the format, though its bulk barely fit in the wire carousel rack that was often used to hold these books in stores that weren't specialty bookstores.

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "I've received the impression that the social hierarchy, and various characters' positions and positioning within it were a not insignificant element of the novel. This is one of the reasons I felt that I would not be able to make my way through it.

I really have no feeling for such things, either in real life or in art,"

I'm with you on all of that... it was frustrating to 'escape' the UK at the time of the coronation of Charles III, only to find copious coverage on the (republican) French TV stations, and to be asked all about it by friends who should have known better.

Maybe, then, extended Proust is not for me either. I may dabble a bit or have a look sometime - it's not high on the TBR list.

[scarletnoir]

CCCubbon wrote: "I’m finding it very difficult to read for more than a short period before my teary eyes defeat..."

I do sympathise - I've never had this problem until this year. Recently, I find that if I read 'too long' (whatever that might be) tears run down my cheeks and I have to stop.

It's very frustrating.

[CCCubbon]

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I’m finding it very difficult to read for more than a short period before my teary eyes defeat..."

I do sympathise - I've never had this problem until this year. Recently, I find ..."
Don’t leave it too long before you get it checked, scarlet. Suspect the way algebra is printed in textbooks didn’t help my eyesight!

[Bill]

scarletnoir wrote: "I'm with you on all of that... it was frustrating to 'escape' the UK at the time of the coronation of Charles III, only to find copious coverage on the (republican) French TV stations, and to be asked all about it by friends who should have known better."

I've been idly wondering if any of the Europe-based contributors here have met someone with a title (not counting encounters with artists or celebrities that have been awarded an OBE). To read certain authors, titled individuals seem fairly thick on the ground in certain milieus.

Here in the US, if you meet someone with a title, it's either a con-man, as in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or, if you're lucky, a great jazz musician.

[Paul]

Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I'm with you on all of that... it was frustrating to 'escape' the UK at the time of the coronation of Charles III, only to find copious coverage on the (republican) French TV st..."

In Italy, I've met a few descendants from former noble families which have since been dispossessed of their titles. The husband of my former boss still called himself a Count, richer than Midas, he was much nicer than my former boss.

A woman who worked in my lab many years ago who bemoaned that her family's holdings had been whittled away and that the Italian government had decreed that people had to have only two surnames, so she had to conjoin two into one but it wasn't the same thing. She married well. Her poor husband....

I also once had dinner at an international cancer conference and was placed at the table of one of the patrons, a small, elderly Scottish man who was already thoroughly soused at lunch and proceeded to smack me on the back, often, saying "I like you Americans, never using Sirs and Lords. Won the war didn't you?"

So, yeah they're around

[Berkley]

Paul wrote: "
In Italy, I've met a few descendants from former noble families which have since been dispossessed of their titles. The husband of my former boss still called himself a Count, richer than Midas, he was much nicer than my former boss. ..."

Thia should probably go in the film thread but anyway, last year I saw an Italian movie A Difficult Life (Una vita difficile, 1961) and there was a hilarious scene in which two of the main characters, a married couple, find themselves having dinner at the home of a family of aristocrats or former aristocrats. Hard to describe but it was one of the highlights of what I thought was a great film all round.

[Berkley]

Paul wrote: "Lost In The Funhouse might be the best starting point for me. If he can't entrance me in the short term, like hell am I giving him the three weeks it would likely take to tackle his longer works."

That's the only John Barth book I've read. From memory, I found it a little uneven, as short story collections can be, but there was at least one that I thought outstanding, "Night-Sea Journey", which however I can imagine might not be to everyone's taste.

I still plan to try at least one of the novels, not sure which - maybe the first one, The Floating Opera, which I think is relatively short.

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "PM was 1940s New York's Popular Front paper. This supports the theory that the buzz phrase came from the left..."

Again, I don't buy your argument..."

I think Orwell in 1937 was the first to show what Stalinism really meant, while Wells, Shaw and the Webbs spent the 1920s praising communism on their Potemkin tours.

The tragedy is that Orwell was treated so badly by the blind faith communists and left wingers in this country. he had discovered some inconvenient truths ......and the stalin lovers didnt like it!

[Berkley]

AB76 wrote: "I think Orwell in 1937 was the first to show what Stalinism really meant, while Wells, Shaw and the Webbs spent the 1920s praising communism on their Potemkin tours.

The tragedy is that Orwell was treated so badly by the blind faith communists and left wingers in this country. he had discovered some inconvenient truths ......and the stalin lovers didnt like it!"

I should look this up to make sure but I believe Bertrand Russell was another of that minority of left-wing thinkers in western Europe who caught on early to the evils of the Stalin regime. In his case, I believe it may have been a trip to the Soviet Union that opened his eyes - though not, apparently, those of the other members of this tour. Such is my memory, at least, though I can't recall now exactly where I read this.

[Berkley]

scarletnoir wrote: "This sounds sensible! Madame has read all of 'À la recherche du temps perdu', but then she's French - that's cheating! I've only read a brief piece in English - 'Swann in love'.

My current experience of struggling through 'Évariste' by my favourite living author François-Henri Désérable is that it takes a lot of time, effort and commitment to get through anything other than straightforward narrative in a language not your own. It may be, though, that Proust relies less on historical sources than does Désérable, though both use literary references. That should, with any luck, speed things up.... Best wishes for a successful and enjoyable experience."

Thanks, I'll try the first volume at least, to make sure I give it a fair trial. And even if I find myself captivated, I probably won't try to read them all in one go. I'll mix them up with other books in between.

My most recent failure in reading French was Nathalie Sarraute's Martereau: I thought I was getting the gist of what was going on after 10 pages or so of the French; then I remembered I also had an English translation so I started re-reading those first few pages just to see how they compared and found that I had missed certain nuances, e.g. an underlying attitude on the part of the narrator that gave a kind of subtle twist to everything he was saying. So I've put it aside for now, though I plan to try again, probably with the English version next time, at least to begin with.

[[deleted user]]

Berkley wrote: "..My most recent failure in reading French was Nathalie Sarraute's Martereau..."

I read in a review somewhere recently that Sarraute’s style was to denude the text of plot, time, character, motivation and description, so I think I would have given up after 10 pages too.

[[deleted user]]

The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s – Alexander Nemerov (2023, Princeton)

An unusual and handsome book, an evocation of a time and place – the outer parts of an expanding society, when Cincinnati was a frontier town – through stories and episodes of a few pages each. The forest still being a strong presence, the motif is of roots and branches reaching into every part of life. The author, a Professor at Stanford, ponders the lives of the trees themselves, often anthropomorphically. The trees are humans, and the humans are trees.

He aims for a poetic, even mystic, ambience. His style is to extend out from an image to reach the circles of meaning around it, rather in the way Pater did with the Mona Lisa.

Edmund de Waal calls it wonderful and Sebaldian. There are indeed some wonderful moments. The essential melancholia that one associates with Sebald is not so evident, perhaps because the mainstream culture which forms the backdrop was strongly practical and forward-looking.

The book would stir many thoughts in someone who is more familiar with the period. There are scores of brilliant glossy pictures of the people, the artifacts and the vistas that prompted each passage.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "PM was 1940s New York's Popular Front paper. This supports the theory that the buzz phrase came from the left..."

Again, I don..."

Right! Also, the Nazi-Soviet Pact revealed which Popular Front organizations were Communist-run-- the hard-line Communists tacked to Moscow's new line. These "premature anti-Fascists" seem to have spent a good deal of time praising themselves, while ignoring the disasters of 1939-1941. Any Marxists who split with Moscow were labelled "Trotskyists."

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "titled individuals seem fairly thick on the ground in certain milieus."

To the best of my knowledge and recollection, I have never met anyone with a title. I'm likely to have met people with MBEs or OBEs, but as they would be unlikely to blurt that out on meeting a stranger, and as such baubles don't impress me (much)* I never check. Those are not circles I move in, for sure. I'm a dyed in the wool meritocrat... you shouldn't have to be signed on for Eton from birth to get on in this world, but it for sure gives an awful lot of mediocrities a huge leg up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqFLX...

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "I just learned that writer John Barth died yesterday at age 93.."

You read them... but did you enjoy them? (I'm not convinced it's for me.)

[scarletnoir]

AB76 wrote: "I think Orwell in 1937 was the first to show what Stalinism really meant..."


No.

Significantly earlier, Gareth Jones - local hero and alumnus of Aberystwyth University - who went on to report for the 'Western Mail' and later the 'Times' and 'Manchester Guardian' - knew exactly what Stalin was worth:

By 1932, Jones had been to the Soviet Union twice, for three weeks in the summer of 1930 and for a month in the summer of 1931.[3] He had reported the findings of each trip in his published journalism,[17][19][20][3] including three articles titled "The Two Russias" he published anonymously in The Times in 1930, and three increasingly explicit articles, also anonymous, titled "The Real Russia" in The Times in October 1931 which reported the starvation of peasants in Soviet Ukraine and Southern Russia...

I walked along through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, 'There is no bread. We are dying'. This cry came from every part of Russia, from the Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia. I tramped through the black earth region because that was once the richest farmland in Russia and because the correspondents have been forbidden to go there to see for themselves what is happening...

I stayed overnight in a village where there used to be two hundred oxen and where there now are six. The peasants were eating the cattle fodder and had only a month's supply left...

On 11 April 1933, Jones published a detailed analysis of the famine in the Financial News, pointing out its main causes: forced collectivization of private farms, removal of 6–7 millions of "best workers" (the Kulaks) from their land, forced requisitions of grain and farm animals and increased "export of foodstuffs" from USSR.[30]

What are the causes of the famine? The main reason for the catastrophe in Russian agriculture is the Soviet policy of collectivisation. The prophecy of Paul Scheffer in 1929–30 that collectivisation of agriculture would be the nemesis of Communism has come absolutely true. — Gareth Jones, Balance Sheet of the Five Year Plan, Financial News, 11 April 1933
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_...

Why was not more attention given to Jones's reports? In part, because of denials by the Soviets which were believed and reported by the New York Times:

This report was denounced by Moscow-resident American journalist Walter Duranty, who had been obscuring the truth in order to please the dictatorial Soviet regime.[4] On 31 March, The New York Times published a denial of Jones's statement by Duranty under the headline "Russians Hungry, But Not Starving". Duranty called Jones' report "a big scare story".

The whole of the Wikipedia article on Jones is worth reading. There is also an apparently decent film about his life (I haven't seen it) called simply "Mr Jones":
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/...

[scarletnoir]

Russell wrote: "Berkley wrote: "..My most recent failure in reading French was Nathalie Sarraute's Martereau..."

I read in a review somewhere recently that Sarraute’s style was to denude the text of plot, time, c..."

If that is a fair representation of Sarraute, then it's definitely not for me... I need context. Without it, actions lack meaning. How can you interpret actions devoid of history, whether on the grand scale or family based?

[scarletnoir]

Robert wrote: "Right!"

So we agree (at last) then that:

1. the phrase "premature anti-fascist" was coined by someone on the right - probably linked to the US Army in some way, but

2. the phrase was subverted for satirical purposes by people on the left, as it is patently ridiculous?

That is all I have claimed. I have no sympathy for Stalin as my post of only a few minutes ago will show you.

You seem to have spent an awful lot of time and effort arguing about something that formed no part whatsoever of the point I was trying to make.

[[deleted user]]

scarletnoir wrote: "If that is a fair representation of Sarraute, ..."

I imagine it’s very unfair, but I do believe she is intensely modernist.

[[deleted user]]

"Bill wrote: "titled individuals seem fairly thick on the ground in certain milieus."

I’ve met a few people with titles, mostly knighthoods, but I have to say that the greatest gentleman I ever met was reported to have refused a peerage. He wished to remain a plain Mr.

[scarletnoir]

Russell wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "If that is a fair representation of Sarraute, ..."

I imagine it’s very unfair, but I do believe she is intensely modernist."

I see... well, I've checked out a list of modernist writers on Wikipedia, and either I have disliked their books or (in some cases) I have liked earlier works but not those cited - from which I guess (possibly wrongly) that they got sucked in to writing in a modernist style from an earlier period which appealed to me more.

For example: André Gide - "The Counterfeiters" - so boring I couldn't finish it. "The Immoralist" is good, though - as is his book on Dostoyevsky.

Knut Hamsun - "Hunger" and "Growth of the Soil" - I'm not convinced by the categorisation here - I liked "Hunger" and most of Hamsun's early novels, but by "Growth of the Soil" he'd become boring and had shot his bolt. I don't recall "Hunger" as having the characteristics of a modernist novel, but I read it - yes - a long time ago.

Indeed, reading the list as it goes on makes me think that the term is possibly too vague to be useful... some authors I've (quite) liked, but most of those sampled - just, no. Not for me. Others can enjoy them as much as they like!

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "PM was 1940s New York's Popular Front paper. This supports the theory that the buzz phrase came from the left..."
..."

on stalin, 3 replies:

robert - love your posts on premature anti-facism
berkley-nertrand russell and his comments on the USSR has piqued my interest, i had him down in the "fooled" camp...i must do some exploring
scarlet- correct about Owen, i remember reading about the Ukraine famine and his involvement in a book in my teens. my point with Orwell is that he became a key figure in the anti-stalinist movement, via his 1940s novels and his commentary on the situation. Owen sadly did not recieve so much publicity or sympathy

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "Russell wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "If that is a fair representation of Sarraute, ..."

I imagine it’s very unfair, but I do believe she is intensely modernist."

I see... well, I've checked out a ..."

i loved all the Hamsun novels i have read including the superb "Growth Of the Soil". I never found in very modernist at all, except for his physcological approach to character and situations. "Mysteries" still haunts me to this day

i do not seek out modernist novels but most i have read were nothing like the labels attached to them. Forsters The Longest Journey was one i avoided by 2 decades due to its modernist label, i read it a few years ago and it was superb, not modernist in my opinion at all