Ersatz TLS discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Weekly TLS
>
What are we reading? 15/07/2024
date
newest »
newest »
Robert wrote: "Frye was a Canadian professor, if I recall. He and US critic Edmund Wilson were described as "the great culture vultures.""Maybe I should give Frye a shot, then. I am a big fan of Wilson, at least of his New Yorker columns. The only books I've read by him that weren't collected journalism are his novel, Memoirs of Hecate County, and Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, which was quite an achievement, but fundamentally flawed for its failure to include slave narratives.
Bill wrote: "Robert wrote: "Frye was a Canadian professor, if I recall. He and US critic Edmund Wilson were described as "the great culture vultures.""Maybe I should give Frye a shot, then. I am a big fan of Wilson, at least of his New Yorker columns. The only books I've read by him that weren't collected journalism are his novel, Memoirs of Hecate County, and Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, which was quite an achievement, but fundamentally flawed for its failure to include slave narratives."
Which Wilsons do you recommend to start with? I haven't read anything yet but have copies of Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870–1930 and To the Finland Station. I'm also curious about The Forties, which I've seen in the used book shops around here. He wrote a book about Canadian literature that I would like to have a look at but I haven't come across that one yet.
Berkley wrote: "Which Wilsons do you recommend to start with?"I'm not really in a position to recommend a starting point. Patriotic Gore is certainly worth reading if you're interested in the US Civil War period, but it's Wilson's last major effort and in some ways reflects a rather reactionary attitude on the part of a writer once sympathetic to leftist revolutionaries.
The other books of criticism by him that I've read are:
Classics and Commercials : a literary chronicle of the forties, which contains pieces pro and contra the various books he dealt with during a decade at the New Yorker. Not being a fan of the genre, I too delight in his three articles taking on fans of detective fiction, but I also enjoyed his takedown of Lovecraft despite being an avid reader of HPL.
A Piece of My Mind: Reflections at Sixty, later pieces which I didn't enjoy as much, though there are some worthwhile items. It contains a short story, "The Messiah at the Seder", which would probably have become a staple of anthologies of Jewish short fiction if Wilson had been Jewish, but which might be condemned now as cultural appropriation.
Bill wrote: "Berkley wrote: "Which Wilsons do you recommend to start with?"I'm not really in a position to recommend a starting point. Patriotic Gore is certainly worth reading if you're certainly worth reading if you're interested in the US Civil War period, but it's Wilson's last major effort and in some ways reflects a rather reactionary attitude on the part of a writer once sympathetic to leftist revolutionaries."
I see that the two that first caught my eye and that I already have are from his earlier period, Axel's Castle (1931) and To the Finland Station (1940) so perhaps I'll try those first. The Canada book is a late one, 1965, so maybe I'll read a few reviews of that one before I take the plunge.
Berkley wrote: "Bill wrote: "Robert wrote: "Frye was a Canadian professor, if I recall. He and US critic Edmund Wilson were described as "the great culture vultures.""Maybe I should give Frye a shot, then. I am ..."
I liked Axel's Castle, had mixed feelings about To the Finland Station, and enjoyed selections in Patriotic Gore.
At this point, the book (or really single essay) by Wilson I'm interested in reading is The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature. I've been looking for a good piece on Philoctetes since I read it a few years ago.
A once in a blue moon event has happened to me. I have just booked tickets for a musical. 'Hadestown' at the Lyric Theatre in London, which is a modernist version of the tale of 'Orpheus and Euridice'. The last time I went to a musical was about 25 years ago!...I heard an interview with the writer on the radio awhile back and she sounded interesting and explained what she was trying to do with the musical very well. It also happens that one of my last excursions to a musical was Offenbach's 'Orpheus In the Underworld' something like 30+ years ago. It seems I have become a bit of an extremely 'niche' musical appreciator. I was much more of a theatre goer, but my theatre going 'buddy' died about ten years ago and I haven't been back since. I'm beginning to wonder what else just drops by the wayside... when circumstances change?
Mod
Tam wrote: "A once in a blue moon event has happened to me. I have just booked tickets for a musical. 'Hadestown' at the Lyric Theatre in London, which is a modernist version of the tale of 'Orpheus and Euridi..."I hope you have a lovely time Tam.
Mod
Sorry you found it heavy ..."
I was trying the Robin Waterfield one, it did feel quite archaic in tone. What is interesting to me is examining what I don't like about it, and why. I think that it is too much a melding of history, myth and story telling, as if they were all the same thing, and no indications as to which is which.
I think you’re experiencing the essence of Herodotus. He absorbs every kind of information that comes to hand, reliable or questionable, and fashions out of it what looks like a smorgasbord but is actually a pre-planned feast of many courses, some more digestible than others, starting with the early expansion of the Persian empire and culminating in their utter defeat by the Greeks. Quite a performance when you consider that he did not himself divide it into books or chapters or even sentences, and let it all stream out as a single long exposition.
Berkley wrote: "Bill wrote: "Robert wrote: "Frye was a Canadian professor, if I recall. He and US critic Edmund Wilson were described as "the great culture vultures.""Maybe I should give Frye a shot, then. I am ..."
i read his 1920s and 1930s diaries and have his 1940s diaries on the pile. Very good
Tam wrote: "A once in a blue moon event has happened to me. I have just booked tickets for a musical. 'Hadestown' at the Lyric Theatre in London, which is a modernist version of the tale of 'Orpheus and Euridi..."Wasn't there a recent show about the Norse character Hel?
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (other topics)Classics and commercials : a literary chronicle of the forties (other topics)
A Piece of My Mind: Reflections at Sixty (other topics)
Memoirs of Hecate County (other topics)
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (other topics)
More...
Sorry you found it heavy going. It does al..."
I was trying the Robin Waterfield one, it did feel quite archaic in tone. What is interesting to me is examining what I don't like about it, and why. I think that it is too much a melding of history, myth and story telling, as if they were all the same thing, and no indications as to which is which. It seems that I have a preference for clarity and so I feel that I'm trying to engage with an unreliable narrator but without the knowledge to keep these various streams identified, and apart. I have always enjoyed reading the occasional quote from him, used by other authors. Cicero was not a fan it seems. Maybe his quote "there is nothing so absurd can be said, that some philosopher has already said it"! I'm paraphrasing here as this quote comes from the mysteries of my 'times past', was, perhaps, actually aimed at Herodotus?
I think that it is also because I am more keyed into empathising with visual field stuff. I have absolutely no problem with mixing historical stuff with myth and story telling in terms of works of art, so why do I have this perceptual double standard/expectation? I love my bizarre medieval marginalia. I must be expecting something different, but I don't know where that expectation comes from. I do appreciate, from my incredibly limited sample of reading it, how much Herodotus's writings have fed into our global literature.
A further random sampling brought up the (quite short) story of Sappho's brother Charaxus freeing the slave/courtesan Rhodopis. I have read a whole novel just based on that one particular story. Anyway I'm happy to leave it unread, and just appreciate him in the occasional quotation, but it has made me think a bit, so I'm pleased about that. I have similar feelings about Rilke. I love many of his quotations, but when attempting a whole book of his, I found it very disappointing, though I still think I should give his 'Book of Hours' a go. Maybe when I finally get round to finishing mine... (only one final one to write 'The Thirteenth Hour', and the one I am stuck on!... and so it goes...