What are we reading? 20/05/2024

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "Over on WWR, the musée Guimet, a Paris museum of Asian art, has been mentioned and I said that I'd never visited another museum of Asian art, the musée Cernuschi, near the parc Monceau.
I went the..."

great to see its free and i will make a note to visit this when i'm next in Paris

[Tam]

I was reading the Guardian headlines this morning and there was a story that the Post Office has been bought by a Czech billionaire. I couldn't resist it, but I had to say "The czech's in the post!"...

[RussellinVT]

scarletnoir wrote: "Berkley wrote: "How is Eden seen these days, from the perspective of so many decades?"

I am just about old enough to remember Suez - as you say, that is what Eden is remembered for. His policy onSpain's civil war I didn't know about. Another black mark against him."

Yes, the blundering failure of Suez - I think that’s exactly how he’s remembered by virtually everyone who remembers him at all. The policy on Spain will, I think, be known only to specialists. His being an early anti-appeaser might be a bit better known. He resigned in early 1938 over Chamberlain’s dealings with Mussolini, and alongside Churchill he was one of the very few bitterly opposed to Munich. He was a brave man. He won an MC on the Western Front. Two brothers were killed in WWI, and a son in WWII. Like many in his generation, his life was dominated by war. Perhaps in time he will be viewed more sympathetically.

[AB76]

Tam wrote: "I was reading the Guardian headlines this morning and there was a story that the Post Office has been bought by a Czech billionaire. I couldn't resist it, but I had to say "The czech's in the post!..."

very good!

[AB76]

Logger24 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Berkley wrote: "How is Eden seen these days, from the perspective of so many decades?"

I am just about old enough to remember Suez - as you say, that is what Eden is remembered..."

he always impressed me as a talking head on 1950-1960s programmes about WW2, usually in french or english. i am too young to remember him as PM though

[AB76]

Finished Up Above The World by Paul Bowles(1966)

Unsettling, strange, hallucinatory and with the cold realism that Bowles specialises in, as the plot threads all tied together, i was left thinking "aha".

Glad i read it but not as good as his three great novels The Sheltering Sky, Let It Come Down and The Spiders House all set in North Africa.

[Bill]

scarletnoir wrote: "Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar

Practically all the violence is 'off-page', and happened in the past... no-one gets slugged unconscious (as happens all to often to Archer, or to Philip Marlowe), so there is little sense of jeopardy."

Vaniish in an Instant is the first Millar I read; I wasn't overwhelmed but stuck with her and have read a few more that I liked better, particularly An Air That Kills.

I rather liked the lack of explicit violence in her stories: her situations generally seem (but only seem) more "mainstream" than those of other mystery or thriller writers.

I have to say that the recurrence of Marlowe receiving a blow on the head causing unconsciousness was one of the reasons I abandoned Chandler after three novels. It seemed like his version of a "deus ex machina" to conveniently jump the plot ahead while keeping his protagonist out of the picture, lest he learn too much and end the story prematurely.

[AB76]

great quote on reading by Hilary Mantel from the NYRB;

when anyone refers-as papers and magazines do at holiday time- to the pleasure of escaping into a good book, you can be sure the writer has no idea what books are for. they are not there to allow you to escape but to give you info about the human condition, which is a thing you cannot escape

this is brilliant, i dont read to escape and the longer quote looks at histort, biography and other forms too..

[AB76]

Am finally getting round to my next Kazantzakis novel, after a break of a good decade or more

I loved The Fratricides, Freedom and Death and Christ Re-crucified but have held off reading Zorba The Greek till now

Having not seen the film of the novel, i am trying to blank out the images that are ubiquitous all over the net. Oddly GR have no cover like the Faber version i am reading, with what looks like Greek cigarette adverts on the cover, rather than the feet of Zorba dancing....the real life Georgios Zorbas is a fascinating character too, from Macedonia(Northern Greece)

[Berkley]

Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar


Vaniish in an Instant is the first Millar I read; I wasn't overwhelmed but stuck with her and have read a few more that I liked better, particularly An Air That Kills.

I rather liked the lack of explicit violence in her stories: her situations generally seem (but only seem) more "mainstream" than those of other mystery or thriller writers.

I have to say that the recurrence of Marlowe receiving a blow on the head causing unconsciousness was one of the reasons I abandoned Chandler after three novels. It seemed like his version of a "deus ex machina" to conveniently jump the plot ahead while keeping his protagonist out of the picture, lest he learn too much and end the story prematurely."

I think even Chandler's greatest admirers wouldn't defend his ability to construct a convincing or even a serviceable plot. But I read and re-read his novels with great pleasure for his scene-painting, characterisation, and word-play.

[Bill]

AB76 wrote: "great quote on reading by Hilary Mantel from the NYRB;

when anyone refers-as papers and magazines do at holiday time- to the pleasure of escaping into a good book, you can be sure the writer has ..."

I didn’t recall that quote in particular from the Mantel article – it was probably overshadowed for me by the quote that immediately preceded it:

“Show me a man—it’s usually a man—who ‘doesn’t see the point of fiction,’ and I’ll show you a pompous, inflexible, self-absorbed bore.”

I have to admit not understanding why the idea of reading to “escape” is so often disparaged, especially when the criticism is voiced by readers and writers of fiction. (I wonder if they ever saw Sullivan’s Travels.)

The attitude strikes me as somewhat Gradgrind-ish: if fiction isn’t in some way useful or instructive, it’s not worth bothering with.

[Berkley]

In the music thread I mentioned my discovery of composer Karl Friedrich Zelter in the pages of Eckermann's Conversations of Goethe, and complained in passing that his wikipedia page doesn't list any of his works.

One thing they do say, though, is that he appears in fictionalised form as a character by a 19th Century female English novelist I have never heard of until now: Elizabeth Sara Sheppard. She was a musician and a music-teacher as well as an author and seems to have made music the focus of her fiction - her wiki page says Beethoven appears in another of her novels, again in fictionalised form under a different name. I think I might have to try to find one of her books.

[RussellinVT]

In a Cardboard Belt!, the collection of essays by Joseph Epstein, arrived, and I immediately turned to the one on Harold Bloom, a 10-page take-down of the critic’s pomposity and pretentiousness, and indeed his frequent incomprehensibility. It was very comical and entertaining. But I felt he entirely missed what made Bloom appeal to people outside the literary-academic world, which is to say, his ability to bring excitement to the business of reading, and an intense enthusiasm for even the most familiar of names. I shall always be grateful to him for giving me an urgent wish to read Balzac. I started with La File aux yeux d’or, first of the eight he picked for the Western Canon, and I didn’t stop until I had read everything there was in Folio Classique.

He’s just as unkind, and just as amusing, on George Steiner, another of my heroes among critics. While allowing that Steiner might be thought (by others, not him) to be a brilliant dramatizer of ideas, and as a lecturer mesmerizing, he doubts Steiner can know as much as he pretends over such a vast range of subjects and languages. Then he drifts away to talk about his own experience of 30 years as a teacher at college level. (“And I should like to add that I don’t think I learned a thing from my students…”). Some admiring references to the philosopher-teacher Alain show that he doesn’t play it all for laughs.

[RussellinVT]

Fille!

[Berkley]

Logger24 wrote: "Fille!"

It's all right, I just created a text file and named it 'aux yeux d'or' in order that your post would make sense. Except that in French they use the word fichier (I think?) so not really.

[Berkley]

Bill wrote: "
I didn’t recall that quote in particular from the Mantel article – it was probably overshadowed for me by the quote that immediately preceded it:

“Show me a man—it’s usually a man—who ‘doesn’t see the point of fiction,’ and I’ll show you a pompous, inflexible, self-absorbed bore.”

I have to admit not understanding why the idea of reading to “escape” is so often disparaged, especially when the criticism is voiced by readers and writers of fiction. (I wonder if they ever saw Sullivan’s Travels.)

The attitude strikes me as somewhat Gradgrind-ish: if fiction isn’t in some way useful or instructive, it’s not worth bothering with."

Yes, I think there's certainly room for pure escapism in literature or any other art form. That doesn't mean that everything has to be enjoyed purely as entertainment or distraction but I have no problem in reading a book that does that and not much more - and I often find that if it's doing that really well, it probably is doing something more, possibly beneath the surface, or it wouldn't be so effective even just as pure entertainment.

The most obvious examples of the kind of thing I have in mind might be genre novels or stories that for some reason take on a life of their own and become part of the collective unconscious, or at least linger on in popular culture long after their initial burst of popularity. Stoker's Dracula, for instance, or even, on a much simpler level, something like Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan. These can certainly be enjoyed as pure escapism but they're also connecting with something deeper.

But I can read things that don't necessarily have that deeper level, things that really are just pure, escapist entertainment - if I happen to be in the right mood.

[CCCubbon]

I was interested in the reference to Eden. MrC did part of his National Service in Suez, guarding the Canal before the crisis. His medal comes out of the box on Remembrance Day each year.
His brother was one of the paras who was flown in during the few days of the crisis.
We talked about our thoughts of Eden . I said that I always thought he was a society rich man who was a bit of an idiot. MrC was less polite and snubbed his nose. But then we were ruled by the gentry still to a large extent and Eden was Churchill’s man..
I can remember that at the time the general feeling was that the country has made a fool of itself and it was not an episode one could be proud about……..but all a long time ago.

[scarletnoir]

Gpfr wrote: "Over on WWR, the musée Guimet, a Paris museum of Asian art, has been mentioned and I said that I'd never visited another museum of Asian art, the musée Cernuschi, near the parc Monceau...."

Another one I didn't know about and never visited. It's interesting how some very wealthy individuals become collectors and then set up museums as (I suppose) memorials. The results can be quite mixed - I've found myself wondering who, exactly, bought the stuff in some of them. The rich person? An adviser? The Gulbenkian in Lisbon is a good example - some great stuff, some not so much. The Wallace collection in London was put together by several generations, so maybe it's not surprising that the quality varies (one piece I saw on a visit there was so bad, I reckon it was a fake - unless the painter was drunk at the time!) One of the Wallaces, of course, donated the wonderful water fountains to Paris.
New York's Frick collection is one of the best - Frick himself seems to have been actively involved in making acquisitions, with advice from Joseph Duveen. Highly recommended!

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "I rather liked the lack of explicit violence in her stories.."

The violence in Marlowe or Lew Archer stories is pretty bloodless, really - nothing compared to some later stuff. But I think it's the repetition you object to? It happened 2-3 times in the last Archer I read, but that was unusual. In many stories, it doesn't happen at all.

I forgot to mention one thing about Millar's book - the women were portrayed as being very stereotypically of that era, for the most part dependent on men for their happiness. There was quite a lot about how they worried about their appearance, etc. I didn't think that modern day feminists would be overly impressed! Perhaps strangely, I don't think the women in her husband's books are depicted that way.

[scarletnoir]

On fiction - I'm not at all sure it has to be "for" anything, but if it's any good it will at least hold the reader's attention and make their imagination work. At the very least, if it does that, it allows us to switch off from our everyday worries and stresses, and enter a different world. I'd rather read than go to a shrink any day! ;-)

At a different level, it allows us to see the word through different eyes, and to gain a better understanding of how other people think. It also allows for pre-planning of what do do in real life if faced with a certain situation... what if, improbably, you are pursued by a psychopath? (I'm joking - but only half.)

Finally, it can help with thinking about what life is for, and our values. Would we behave like that, or refrain? Where are the red lines and boundaries? (Assuming we feel a degree of free will, and are not tied tightly to a moral code designed by a religious or political group or cult.)

I'm sure it has many other potential "uses", though... that's not meant as a comprehensive list.

[Bill]

Paul Griffiths on Bluesky quotes Jon Fosse

“Literary language…has no message; it conveys nothing; it is a kind of meaning without comunication. It exists as its own thing.” (Jon Fosse: Nobel speech A SILENT LANGUAGE)

(which seems to me more a description of music rather than any literature I can think of).

[RussellinVT]

Berkley wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Fille!"

It's all right, I just created a text file and named it 'aux yeux d'or' in order that your post would make sense. Except that in French they use the word fichier (I think?) so not really."

I think you have an excellent filling system there!

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "On fiction - I'm not at all sure it has to be "for" anything, but if it's any good it will at least hold the reader's attention and make their imagination work. At the very least, if it does that, ..."

i have always found reading non-english fiction very enlightening in the cultural studies of nations and peoples, a lot of my first reading was in translation and what i learned there has remained with me, exploring numerous different cultures and nations

[FrustratedArtist]

scarletnoir wrote: "On fiction - I'm not at all sure it has to be "for" anything, but if it's any good it will at least hold the reader's attention and make their imagination work. At the very least, if it does that, ..."

I think you are right, we read fiction because we enjoy it. Non-fiction too, it satisfies the mind 's need to roam far and wide and experrience a world outside our own concerns. I was reading a chapter in Melvyn Bragg's the Adventure of English today, and came across this quote from Jane Austin (Northanger Abbey):

"...there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. ‘I am no novel reader – I seldom look into novels – Do not imagine that I often read novels – It is really very well for a novel.’ – Such is the common cant. – ‘And what are you reading, Miss—’ ‘Oh! it is only a novel!’ replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. ‘It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda’; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."

I suppose novel reading satisfies the fundamental human need to listen to tales that has been part of us since the dawn of history and probably long before.

[AB76]

As you all know, i'm not a genre reader, i dont binge on sci-fi or crime but i do like to dip into these genre's at least once or twice each a year.

Phillip K Dick has become an essential read for me, due to his extensive back catalogue but also just how much each of the four novels of his i have read since 2015 make me think. Every one, i pick them randomly, has left me with a feeling that he trying to tell us about the state of the current world, while setting his novels in different worlds and times.

His simple, precise and concise 200 page odd novels are a for me examples of the writers art, superior to Hemmingway and for many years big Ern has been my template for brevity and the writers art. (i tried to encourage a friend who wrote a novel to go more Ern but he went more Tolstoy...lol)

It might be a small sample size, 4 novels but i also feel is very skillful at capturing insecurities in his characters and fears, which usually revolve around the many great themes of life

I have just started Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said from 1974 and after just 14 pages, i have a deliciously PKD pill on my tongue....

[AB76]

Trump guilty on all 34 charges, great news BUT now he will appeal and it will all be a long drawn out process...only the rich are capable of that

and he can still run for President, as a convicted felon....so sad

[Bill]

AB76 wrote: "and he can still run for President, as a convicted felon....so sad"

Eugene V. Debs

[AB76]

Bill wrote: "AB76 wrote: "and he can still run for President, as a convicted felon....so sad"

Eugene V. Debs"

Yes, Debs made it possible for Trump! i dont blame Debs personally tho..ofc

[RussellinVT]

FrustratedArtist wrote: "...I was reading a chapter in Melvyn Bragg's the Adventure of English today, and came across this quote from Jane Austin (Northanger Abbey)..."

Thanks for that very good quote, which I remember from long-gone A Level days, and for the reminder of The Adventure of English, which I read with pleasure years ago. Time, I think, to read both of them again.

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar

I've recently read nearly all of Ross Macdonald's 'Lew Archer' books, and enjoyed nearly all of them very much... so I th..."

You might enjoy Millar's How Like an Angel, a good mystery.

[Robert]

scarletnoir wrote: "Berkley wrote: "How is Eden seen these days, from the perspective of so many decades?"

I am just about old enough to remember Suez - as you say, that is what Eden is remembered for. His policy on ..."

Once my mother was watching a TV program that mentioned Eden. She glanced over toward my father and said: "You know, I can't think of anyone who wanted it as much as Slick [Mr. Nixon] except Sir Anthony Eden, and no sooner did either of them get it, than they blew it."
And Dad nipped his pipe and replied, "Number Twos, Number Twos."

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar

I've recently read nearly all of Ross Macdonald's 'Lew Archer' books, and enjoyed nearly all of them very mu..."

thanks robert and i liked that anecdote about your dad

[AB76]

Its a shame the US constitution is so flawed and relatively un-modified in the last 200 years, on this side of the pond i cant remember any President in my lifetime save Obama who struck me as a great person and thinker but the prospect of a Trump return will change the world as we know it

I just hope the EU gets its act together on Putin for when Trump leaves NATO and the other NATO states can get the funding together themselves. Spending should dwarf Russian spending but then they were a military state before the Ukraine war

Sinclair Lewis wrote "It Couldnt Happen Here", well lightning could strike twice in the USA

[Paul]

AB76 wrote: "Its a shame the US constitution is so flawed and relatively un-modified in the last 200 years, on this side of the pond i cant remember any President in my lifetime save Obama who struck me as a gr..."


I don't know, I tend to think of the US Constitution as one of the most succinctly important documents in human history with few, big flaws. Such as recognition of women and abolishment of slavery. Beyond that, the problem is not the US Constitution, but the twats who choose to interpret it to their own personal philosophy.

As for Trump.... not to mix the pot, but might he not have somewhat of a point on this issue? This continent can't defend itself from a wet fart or a party boat of college students. Europe has some very difficult decisions about how they see their future evolving and whether they can continue to support their wonderful social safety net at the expense of their utterly lacking physical safety net.

And then they need to ask themselves how much they can continue to depend upon Russia and Africa for natural resources. Everyone like to point the finger at the USA for oil, but Europe is measurably worse in that regard. I've already had the discussion with my companion about taking the kids back to the states with me if the situation continues to devolve in the direction that it is going in Europe.

[AB76]

Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Its a shame the US constitution is so flawed and relatively un-modified in the last 200 years, on this side of the pond i cant remember any President in my lifetime save Obama who stru..."

its certainly a brilliant document, compiled by intelligent, thoughtful men and the Federalist Papers are a brilliant outline of the process of debates and discussions to getb there. i do concede i omitted to mention the human hands who inherit said constitution needed to be of the same calibre. The SC is now doing immense damagae and has probably started the slippery slope to partisan lawmaking at the top level as a default policy

i guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel was very weak on Putin and it will be a negative legacy of her remarkable time as Kanzler.

1989 for me was when the neo-liberal elites decided to turbocharge a move away from defence without a blueprint for the emergence of a balkan or russian problem again, as history would tell us. So much less was spent on defence for maybe 25 years or so, leaving a minute military industrial capability and the problems faced today. The "peace dividend" looks foolish now, as a child of 1989(aged 13 i remember following all the events with excitement), i am deeply sad at how things look in 2024

its a shame you are thinking of leaving Europe Paul but i can see your concerns

[giveusaclue]

AB76 wrote: "Trump guilty on all 34 charges, great news BUT now he will appeal and it will all be a long drawn out process...only the rich are capable of that

and he can still run for President, as a convicted..."

Quite. And not wishing to upset our American friends, given the population of the US, to only be able to come up with a choice between Trump and Biden gives pause for thought/despair. Then I look around the world and see Sunak/Starmer/Sturgeon-Humza...Putin Xi. Sometimes feel glad I am 76 and not 26.

Meanwhile back to books... I seem to have hit a bit of a trough and really need a good history book to lift things.

On the plus side, the hip is feeling great now. I can tie my shoelaces again without using the sock aid, lie on either side in bed (still carefully) and managed to do all I wanted a couple of weeks ago on holiday in Kent. That included a 4 mile walk which I can only dream about this time last year.

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Trump guilty on all 34 charges, great news BUT now he will appeal and it will all be a long drawn out process...only the rich are capable of that

and he can still run for President, a..."

good to hear the hip is doing well

what sort of history are you interested in for suggestions?

Troughs are a bind for us booklovers arent they, i havent had a bad one in a long, long time but they can become a real bore!

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "really need a good history book to lift things...."

I recommend The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown. I found it lively and engaging.
And read S.G. Maclean's Damian Seeker books to go with it.
I think this is maybe a bit later than your usual interests? But really good.

[Bill]

Fintan O'Toole misreading Shakespeare in the NYRB:

Shakespeare is ... simultaneously offering and withholding meaning. One way he does this is with a figure of speech that is peculiar in his own sense, personal to him. A distinctive strand of his writing is his fondness for expressing one concept with two words, joined together by “and.” No one has ever made such a humble three-letter word so slippery.

For example, when Hamlet thinks of Fortinbras’s army going off to invade Poland, he remarks that the warriors are willing to die “for a fantasy and trick of fame.” Laertes warns Ophelia against “the shot and danger of desire.” Shakespeare uses this device sixty-six times in Hamlet, twenty-eight times in Othello (“body and beauty”), eighteen times in Macbeth (“sound and fury”) and fifteen times in King Lear (“the image and horror of it”). With these conjunctions, every take is a double take. When we hear “and,” we expect the two things being joined together either to be different yet complementary (the day was cold and bright) or obviously the same (Musk is vile and loathsome).

Shakespeare does use such obvious phrasing, but often he gives us conjunctions that are neither quite the same nor quite different. A trick and a fantasy are alike but not exactly. The shot and the danger are closely related but separate concepts, as are sound and fury. Sometimes our brains can adjust fairly easily: “The image and horror” can be put back together as a horrible image. The “shot and danger” is a dangerous shot. But sometimes they can’t. When Hamlet tells the players that the purpose of theater is to show “the very age and body of the time,” we get the overall idea: they should embody the life of their own historical period. But the individual pieces of the phrase don’t cohere. The time does not have a body—it is the thing to be embodied by the actors. The “age of the time” borders on tautology. When Hamlet talks of his father’s tomb opening “his ponderous and marble jaws,” we must work quite hard to get to what is being signified, which is the heavy marble construction of the tomb. That banal little word “and” leaves us in a place somewhere between comprehension and mystery.

The suggestion of a tautology should have prompted a reconsideration. I believe the quote should be understood such that "and" connects "age" with "body of the time", not connecting "age" and "body" as two attributes of "the time" as O'Toole reads it.

The context:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I have seen play and heard others praise (and that highly), not to speak it profanely, that, neither having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

[Paul]

AB76 wrote: "Pi guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel was very weak on Putin and it will be a negative legacy of her remarkable time as Kanzler.
"

Why? Does Great Britain have any natural resources other than mutton and wilted greens? I think the EU sleptwalked into the Russian situation in much the same way as the UK sleptwalked into Brexit. Both are vast overestimates of the reality of productivity and budget to the point of distorting reality to fit the fantasy.

I agree that the USA hasn't had a truly competent president since..... I don't know when. Personally, I think Clinton did much good, much more so than Obama. But I don't see a truly inspirational leadership in any part of the world. Italy had Giulio Andreotti and a bunch of mafiosi/fascists. The UK has had? I'm hard pressed to think of a competent, inspirational Prime Minister in any European or European-adjacent country within my lifetime. Reagan and Thatcher did more damage to Anglo democracy than Mao Tse Tung or Vladimir Lenin could have ever dreamed of doing.

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "really need a good history book to lift things...."

I recommend The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown. I found it lively and engaging.
And read S.G. Ma..."

i have the restless republic on my list......

[AB76]

Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Pi guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel was very weak on Putin and it will be a..."


Merkel, maybe Kohl? i think she is the best i can think of. I had such hopes for Schroder but he basically turned into Putin's best mate and is now totally corrupt

i'm with you on Thatcher and Reagan 100%. I keep reading more about the nasty neo-liberal shit that Ronnie inflicted on the USA, i was closer to the Thatcher rubbish, so remember it better

[Paul]

AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Pi guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel was very weak on Putin and..."

I would say that Southern Europe views Merkel in much the same way that the Irish view Thatcher.

[AB76]

Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Pi guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel was very weak..."

i agree with you, i was not happy with the way Greece was treated in that period, the attempts to impose austerity policies in return for bail outs stank of that bastion of neo-liberalism, the IMF

But in some ways politicians that are lauded usually shed the negatives over time and become remembered for other things entirely, so many of our leaders of the last 30 years may get the same result

I can imagine In 2040, a semi AI life-supported President Trump will still be in the White House and more orange than ever.....tipping precedent into the dustcart of history

[giveusaclue]

AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Trump guilty on all 34 charges, great news BUT now he will appeal and it will all be a long drawn out process...only the rich are capable of that

and he can still ..."

Norman/Medieval/Plantagenet/Wars of the Roses in particular, though I am happy to stray backwards too!

Sky History have a series "Instruments of Death" showing weapons over the millennia. Ouch

[giveusaclue]

Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "really need a good history book to lift things...."

I recommend The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown. I found it lively and engaging.
And read S.G. Ma..."

Thanks G (and belatedly for the thread) I have the S G MacLeans on my tbr pile, and will look at the other one, thanks.

[giveusaclue]

Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Pi guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel was very weak..."

Merkel's "legacy" took a hit over the fuel crisis. Whoever, could not have foreseen that it would not be a good idea to be in hock to the Russians for fuel supplies?

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Trump guilty on all 34 charges, great news BUT now he will appeal and it will all be a long drawn out process...only the rich are capable of that

and ..."

ooh...not any era's i have read about recently sadly but all interesting

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Pi guess on this island our reliance on russia and africa is less of an issue but the EU has sleptwalked into the Russia problem, i think Merkel ..."

just watched Trumps incredible 40 min fact free nonsense from Trump Towers...oh my, he is just away with the fairies

[Gpfr]

giveusaclue wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "really need a good history book to lift things...."

What about The Crusades Through Arab Eyes? I read this in French (Les Croisades vues par les Arabes) and wrote about it here in May last year. I see it's been translated into English. I found it really interesting.