Ersatz TLS discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Weekly TLS
>
What are we reading? 9/09/2024
message 51:
by
Bill
(new)
Sep 13, 2024 03:34PM
After enjoying The Fionavar Tapestry last month, this month's trilogy is another fantasy of multiple worlds: Walker of Worlds by Tom De Haven, whose earlier, non-fantasy, trilogy Funny Papers Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, and Dugan Under Ground, I enjoyed immensely some years ago.
reply
|
flag
Mod
Mod
https://i.postimg.cc/RFQ9Gsgs/temp-Im...
Paul wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I was referring to cancel culture to an extent, which is not so much to do with the far right. Think of the treatment J. K. Rowling got, think of the people ..."I think her more recent pronouncements fit what you say - earlier, she had a few valid points.
AB76 wrote: "(It) is difficult when people with large social media following opine on complex issues. Musk and Trump are the raving wing of this problem but Rowling doesnt help either, whether the points she is making have any weight or not, she oversteps the mark quite often."Exactly so.
The article I linked to contained a lot of information I wasn't aware of up until that point. Many of these subjects are complex, and a short tweet can't do them justice and will usually - maybe always - be misleading. (I don't use Twitter or'X', in any case...)
Paul wrote: "Soon, I expect human longevity to start dropping precipitously in American and European societies due to the spread of stupidity experts..."Life expectancy in the UK actually fell in recent years, though that was to a large degree due to COVID. However, the rate of increase in life expectancy had already slowed considerably since 2011. The independent research body the King's Fund publishes many reports on such matters, and they conclude that:
Life expectancy in England is significantly lower for people living in more deprived areas than for people living in less deprived areas (see figures 3 and 4). Socio-economic inequalities in health in England have been widening since 2010...
While a slowdown in improvements in life expectancy between 2010 and 2019 was seen in many European countries, the slowdown in the UK was among the greatest. It is likely that there were several reasons for these trends, some specific to the UK (such as widening inequalities) and some common to the UK and other European countries (such as the swings in flu-related mortality and slowdown in CVD mortality improvements).
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-...
AB76 wrote: "..it doesn't help when prospective candidates for the presidency follow the same sources (eating pets in springfield!!?)It appears Mr Trump "saw this on TV" - so it must be true, right?
Instead of admitting his error, Trump has now doubled down, with the threat of deporting the immigrants to "Venezuela" (most cone from Haiti - and entered the USA legally.) Ah, well.
Logger24 wrote: "I won’t be posting for a couple of weeks. We’re off to explore the south and east of Sicily. I’m taking an Inspector Montalbano - August Heat. Buona lettura, everyone."Spero che abbiate una vacanza meravigliosa
scarletnoir wrote: "Paul wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I was referring to cancel culture to an extent, which is not so much to do with the far right. Think of the treatment J. K. Rowling got, think o..."There are of course the situations you mention, and for those people I have great sympathy. But where we have people who have been through male puberty taking part in women's competitive sport is something to be debated.
you said:
This is undesirable, though if you look at examples of suppression of free speech, you'll find that those on the extreme right appear to believe in free speech for themselves, but not for others.
It really isn't limited to the far right. Is deplatforming in universities all carried out by the far right?
I'm most of the way through Jonathan Coe's Bournville by now, and enjoying it enormously. It has a serious purpose, but even so is light and often very funny - I enjoyed this extract, which refers to my home town... the two people in conversation are a young lad from the Birmingham area and a girl of the same age (11-12) from a farm near Harlech:'I've never been to England. Don't want to, especially'
'I don't blame you. Why would you? It's much prettier here.'
'You get bored with that after a while. We're so far from everything. We have to drive half an hour just to get to the cinema. I'd like to live in a big city somewhere, like Aberystwyth.'
'Where's that?' I asked. I had never heard of Aberystwyth.
'Not far from here. It's got a university and everything. I've been there... two or three times. You should see it! The shops! There are hundreds and hundreds of them!'
'Birmingham has a lot of shops', I bragged, not wishing to be outdone.
'Not as many as Aberystwyth, I bet.'
It made me laugh, anyway!
(Aber. never had 'hundreds' of shops, though things have got a lot worse since COVID and the growth of online shopping - like many other places, no doubt.)
Logger24 wrote: "I won’t be posting for a couple of weeks. We’re off to explore the south and east of Sicily. I’m taking an Inspector Montalbano - August Heat. Buona lettura, everyone."enjoy!!
Karl Marx was a prolific writer and i am enjoying his Dispatches for the New York Tribune which collects a selection of his english language articles for the paper in the 1850s
Whether on the evils of the opium trade, the machinations of Napoleon the Second, English landlords clearing the Highlands or Ireland, plus the corruption in the 1852 general election are all topics he covers with aplomb.
There is some cautious wit and interesting expressions too, i'm half way through and glad i found this collection
Logger24 wrote: "I won’t be posting for a couple of weeks. We’re off to explore the south and east of Sicily. I’m taking an Inspector Montalbano - August Heat. Buona lettura, everyone."I hope you intend to visit some of the Montalbano settings, and to enjoy some of the dishes he eats in that series! Many of the locations are listed here:
https://www.visitsicily.info/en/itine...
I also looked into the guided tours available a while ago, but haven't yet visited Sicily - I can't advise as to their quality but I'd expect at least some of them might be worth considering.
In the book I'm reading - 'Bournville' by Jonathan Coe - one character is reading, without much enthusiasm, the Booker-winning 'The Twilight of Otters' by Lionel Hampshire. This is, of course, a made-up title by a non-existent author and - as you might expect from the risible title - not rated by the narrator. (Maybe Coe is having a dig at the frequently pretentious choices made by Booker judges... he hasn't won a Booker, even though - or because - his books are far more 'readable' than most winners.)Anyway - it got me thinking about 'books within books', especially as I recently read Percival Everett's Erasure which contains an 80-page 'novel' by the main protagonist - except that he also presented it as if by another author entirely (very meta!).
I enjoyed both those books and have since found lists of other 'books within books' - it appears to be not uncommon. Have any of you especially enjoyed that scenario?
(There seems to be a list online at https://invislib.blogspot.com/ , though it doesn't appear to have been updated recently - a pity.)
giveusaclue wrote: "It really isn't limited to the far right. Is deplatforming in universities all carried out by the far right?..."Of course not - and I don't agree with it.
The word 'woke', though, does carry a lot of baggage as it's pretty meaningless and has been used by right-wing newspapers to stir up culture wars. It seemed all too obvious in the dying days of the Tory government that these newspaper commentators were doing their level best to distract the population from the dreadful record of the Tory party, and to paint the other parties with an affection for 'wokeness' whatever that's supposed to mean.
It was pretty annoying to see such a negative approach to a general election. Stirring up division and hatred does no one any good, as we saw recently in Southport and other places. I'd prefer to see a more constructive approach from our politicians - and newspapers.
Has anyone here been to Musée de l’Homme, in Paris? I am hoping to visit the Cluny as well, I was also contemplating the Surrealists at The Pompidou, but that might be booked up? and I don't have the energy to do more than 2 museums in a day, even that is a bit of a stretch these days...
giveusaclue wrote: "Spero che abbiate una vacanza meravigliosa."The only Italian that comes to my mind is "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate", which is certainly inappropriate in this context.
scarletnoir wrote: "the Booker-winning 'The Twilight of Otters' by Lionel Hampshire. This is, of course, a made-up title by a non-existent author and - as you might expect from the risible title - not rated by the narrator."I could go on at length on the subject of books, both real and imagined, within books.
If you enjoy made-up Booker nominees, Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn should be right in your sweet spot. It deals with a shortlist of fictional contenders (such as the tale of Glaswegian lowlife, wot u starin at), as well as their authors and those who nominated them.
New Grub Street, a considerably grimmer work than the St. Aubyn, offers a selection of fictional late Victorian authors and their books.
And of course there is the dreaded Necronomicon imagined by Lovecraft, which a character in Gene Wolfe's Peace finds himself commissioned to write.
From the Realm of Morpheus imagines an entire library made up of books that only exist within other books.
Logger24 wrote: "Before I go, a while back there were some lovely images from gpfr of items in a small museum in Paris, including a Chinese dragon. This made me think of a Chinese dragon my mother had inherited. It..."I agree with the thought that they are perhaps incense holders. In some of my misspent youth I was a bit of a hippy and regularly used to visit a hippy shop in Manchester, 'On the Eighth Day', where there were these types of small Chinese dragons, and a lot of incense on sale. I can remember coming home with a small vial of Patchouli oil. I tried some on, and was greeted by one of my non-hippy fellow house mates with 'What's that smell of burning ping-pong balls'!...
Have a great trip...
scarletnoir wrote: "I ... have since found lists of other 'books within books' - it appears to be not uncommon. Have any of you especially enjoyed that scenario?..."Anyone read S / Ship of Theseus, by J J Abrams/ Doug Dorst/ V M Straka?
With 'hand-written' annotations by 'readers' in the margins and various inserts too. I think the way the book had been produced impressed me more than the story/ stories, which were rather hard going, but it's certainly one of a kind.
Bill wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Spero che abbiate una vacanza meravigliosa."The only Italian that comes to my mind is "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate", which is certainly inappropriate in this context."
Certamente!
Bill wrote: "I could go on at length on the subject of books, both real and imagined, within books.If you enjoy made-up Booker nominees, Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn should be right in your sweet spot. It deals with a shortlist of fictional contenders (such as the tale of Glaswegian lowlife, wot u starin at)...
Thanks for this - and for keeping it short!
The St. Aubyn sounds potentially interesting, and I'll look into it... ;-)
Just the name 'St. Aubyn' (which is all I know about him - or them?) suggests a public school posho deserving of parody, rather than a wit who can dish it out, so I may (as so often) have rushed to judgement, unfairly. Nevertheless... wot u starin at sounds like something a Londoner might say, rather than a Glaswegian (not that I know any). Fancy a kiss?* might have been better...
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Glasgo...
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "I think the way the book had been produced impressed me more than the story/ stories, which were rather hard going, but it's certainly one of a kind."Thanks - clearly an 'interesting' book, though maybe that's less than an enthusiastic recommendation!
Tam wrote: "Has anyone here been to Musée de l’Homme, in Paris? I am hoping to visit the Cluny as well, I was also contemplating the Surrealists at The Pompidou, but that might be booked up? and I don't have t..."I haven't been since we lived there, but it was pretty fascinating and is likely better now than ever, just after the Olympics - plus, due to its position, you get a great view over the Seine towards the Tour Eiffel...
https://www.museedelhomme.fr/fr
I'm not sure how many of the Paris museums you've already visited, but there are a couple of smaller ones in what used to be large private houses, so easier on the feet:
Musée Marmottan - many impressionist works by Monet and Berthe Morisot, etc. (The Monet 'Impression, sunrise' is currently on loan to the Monet exhibition in... London's National Gallery!)
https://www.marmottan.fr/
Musée Rodin - definitely worth a visit if you haven't been, and very central:
https://www.musee-rodin.fr/
scarletnoir wrote: "Bill wrote: "I could go on at length on the subject of books, both real and imagined, within books.If you enjoy made-up Booker nominees, Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn should be right in your..."
He is from aristocratic stock, but, he writes well. I read 3 of his Patrick Melrose novels, loosely based on his upbringing, which was very abusive, Some Hope, Mother's Milk and At Last. Curiously I have two friends, from separate 'aristocratic' families who have been disinherited by the family patriarch, aided and abetted by the mothers, which have a lot of similarities with the arc of Aubyn's narrative story. He is very illuminating on power relationships within families. I recommend them as a 'goodread'...
Thanks for the recommends for museums in Paris. I wish I was staying longer!... I have only been to the big art galleries in Paris, and the Cluny Museum. So much to see!... I was hoping to see the Impressionist exhibition, but I would have to go to New York for that now.
Mod
I haven't been there.
A small museum which could go well with Cluny (not too far away) is the Musée Zadkine. Recently renovated, in what was his house and studio. And free, as it's one of the museums belonging to the city.
Tam wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "I have only been to the big art galleries in Paris..."If 'big' means large rather than 'important', then you absolutely must go to the Orangerie, just by the Place de la Concorde - which has some of Monet's most astonishing (and largest) depictions of his water lilies:
https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/nod...
Thanks for the new thread. Welcome in hospital days. Besides light reading from Medicare, I've been leafing through Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. Lyndon Baines Johnson, a man of considerable ability from a poor and obscure Texas background, arrived in Washington with a great drive for power and money. He wanted power, and in politics that required a great deal of money-- greater and greater as he rose higher. When anticommunism was the major issue, Johnson was a freshman Senator, and his oil company allies badly wanted to deny a regulator another term in office. The oil people provided decades-old publications to suggest that the man was a radical in his youth, and Lyndon provided the political contacts and parliamentary savvy. The regulator, who'd heard the charges years before and thought that they were dead and gone, was sandbagged with hostile witnesses at his confirmation hearing, and his term was not revewed.
Johnson kept doing this and kept rising. It's a depressing story, really.
Robert wrote: "Thanks for the new thread. Welcome in hospital days. Besides light reading from Medicare, I've been leafing through Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. Lyndon Baines Johnson, a man of considerab..."
i have been meaning to read at least one of Caro's huge volumes on LBJ, a figure who seemed to embody all that is bad about political game playing but who managed many decent things in his 5 years-ish as President
The greed of politicians is something i find nauseating, which would make reading about LBJ even harder.I think politicians in general make tricky subjects, i used to read a lot of political biogs, a lot less as i get older.
I still see references now to the Nixon-JFK debate and people still forget to mention the reality of what tv supposedly decided. Nixon was suffering from a knee injury and in pain, he looked rough and under the weather, cos he was. JFK, already ill with various chronic issues was actually the far less healthy of the two, but tanned and lively, won the debate. Smoke and mirrors...
AB76 wrote: "Karl Marx was a prolific writer and i am enjoying his Dispatches for the New York Tribune which collects a selection of his english language articles for the paper in the 1850s [bookcover:Dispatche..."I believe that Marx continued writing for Greeley's Tribune during the American Civil War.
AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "Thanks for the new thread. Welcome in hospital days. Besides light reading from Medicare, I've been leafing through Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. Lyndon Baines Johnson, a ma..."
Although when people who listened to Nixon/Kennedy on the radio were polled, Nixon came out ahead.
LBJ is justly remembered for his role in passing the 1964 Civil Rights act. Though a few years earlier, when Republican Attorney General Brownell asked Congress for similar enforcement powers, LBJ worked with his mentor, Richard Russell, to strip any real grant of new power from the bill. Johnson needed to throw a bone to the liberals in return for stripping out enforcement powers, and found a willing channel to the liberals in another hungry young Senator, Hubert Humphrey.
Even Eisenhower made a furious public statement about the Senate's refusal to protect the right to vote, but Johnson just went on making backroom deals between Russell and his hard-core segregationists on the one side, and some of the moderate Democrats and Republicans on the other.
The 1957 Civil Rights Act finally passed, with both the liberals and the shrewder segregationists, like Russell, saying that this was the best bill they could get.
When Johnson was in the White House, of course, he played a different game. With Russell and his Southern Democrat allies in opposition, he needed a floor leader in the Senate. For a short time, partisan Republican Everett Dirkson led on the floor, and Old Ev got to be hero for a day.
Of course, Johnson knew that he would be the one credited for the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, just as Eisenhower and Brownell would have been credited for a strong Civil Rights Act in 1957.
I finished Jonathan Coe's Bournville a couple of days ago... it was an exceptionally enjoyable read, and I shot through it. Coe structures his book by looking at brief periods surrounding significant national events - starting with VE day, and ending with the 75th anniversary of that day. In between, many royal events - the coronation, Charles's investiture, the royal wedding, Diana's funeral etc. as well as the 1966 football world cup. Around these events, he describes the actions and feelings of the Lamb family, their friends, partners and neighbours. In this way, he manages to cover all sorts of political and social topics, but with his usual light touch - the book is often hilarious despite its essentially serious intent.
Strongly recommended. (Coe is, for me, currently the most consistently entertaining English writer of literary fiction.)
I note that one of my favourite living authors, Percival Everett, has made it onto the short list for the Booker; another - Hisham Matar - made the long list. Of the 13 on the long list, those are the only two I've read, IIRC!
Robert wrote: "Thanks for the new thread. Welcome in hospital days. Besides light reading from Medicare, I've been leafing through Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. Lyndon Baines Johnson, a man of considerab..."
I hope your days of lying in bed in hospital come to an end soon.. (I spent six weeks in traction, once - not much fun!)
What you say about LBJ is interesting.. clearly a cynical manipulator who ended up doing some good (I suppose) - incidentally? Or did he have some commitment to the civil rights cause? And - does it matter?
Certainly, a lived example of the idea that people are very rarely all good or all bad.
Mod
From an article in The G:
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/...
Mod
Sorry to hear you're still in hospital, Robert. I hope all goes well and you can get out after not too much longer. And I hope you've got plenty to read!
Gpfr wrote: "Nothing to do with books, but I've just done the test about our perception of blue or green to be found on ismy.blue.From an article in The G:
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/......"
Haha, I took the test and am mine is at hue 178 - bluer than 80% of the population. I have had discussions with friends in the past - "no that is blue, no that is green!
Then I did it again and the result changed!
Mod
I took the test and am mine is at hue 178 - bluer than 80% of the population...."
I was at the exact median. But didn't try doing it again ...
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Karl Marx was a prolific writer and i am enjoying his Dispatches for the New York Tribune which collects a selection of his english language articles for the paper in the 1850s [bookco..."would love to find those articles, thanks! there is just one article, from 1861 in my collection about the civil war
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "Thanks for the new thread. Welcome in hospital days. Besides light reading from Medicare, I've been leafing through Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro. Lyndon Baines ..."
very interesting, i think will have to read the Caro book now!
Pager explosions across Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah, amazing ingenuity if it was by IsraelMy extensive reading about Lebanon has one constant, malevolent factor since the mid 1980s, Hezbollah and its thugs. They are a parasite on the lebanese host and with iranian money run their own Shia Islam state from South Beirut. They also do work with other groups to de-stabilise Lebanon.
In my opinion it was a distinctly cowardly despicable act to put explosives in people’s pagers. The Israelis may be at war with Hezbollah but this is a true low in human behaviour, quite wicked.
Mod
I completely agree with you on this.
Gpfr wrote: "Nothing to do with books, but I've just done the test about our perception of blue or green to be found on ismy.blue.From an article in The G:
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/......"
We did it too - both tending towards the green end. I tried it twice on different devices - 79% green on the laptop, 90% green on the mobile. I suppose those are percentiles...
It's something I've thought about often - how perceptions, even in the most apparently straightforward ways - can differ between individuals. Colour 'blindness' is just one of the better known examples. (I'd expect anyone with an interest in the visual arts - say, Tam - to also be interested in these matters.)
CCCubbon wrote: "In my opinion it was a distinctly cowardly despicable act to put explosives in people’s pagers. The Israelis may be at war with Hezbollah but this is a true low in human behaviour, quite wicked."If there are degrees of wickedness, then this isn't the worst - IF as has been claimed the pagers were specifically being used by militants. But again, IF it is true as reported that a 10 year old girl was killed, it goes to show once again how indiscriminate bombs of any size can be when used as a weapon. This is something I learned at close quarters in Northern Ireland. So, wicked - yes, but...
Very much worse IMO has been the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of Gaza, where it is reckoned some 10,000 children have been killed. As always, verifying the actual numbers is difficult (the IDS appears somewhat indifferent to the safety of journalists who could check things out), but no one will deny that the numbers of dead children, women, medical staff - and civilian non-combatant men - are very high.
scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "In my opinion it was a distinctly cowardly despicable act to put explosives in people’s pagers. The Israelis may be at war with Hezbollah but this is a true low in human behaviour,..."as almost everyone in posession of the pagers was a terrorist(analysis suggests these devices were issued to senior hezbollah operatives in the summer), i have no sympathy if they were injured or maimed but there is always the concern that family members or civilians might get hurt which is not good. The explosion in the market showed that only the terrorist was maimed and nobody else was hurt but i guess its all too random to expect 2500 explosions to be totally accurate
Hezbollah are a cancer on the state of Lebanon, with Iranian money they have infiltrated lebanese civil society and the lebanese state is too weak to attack and destroy Hezbollah. for 24 years since Israel withdrew from South Lebanon they have been set on destroying Israel and they are no good for anyone, a parasite.
whileHamas have been decimated in the south it has been at a ridiculous and shocking human cost. Like Hezbollah they are a terrorist parasite funded by Iranian money but less well controlled
scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Nothing to do with books, but I've just done the test about our perception of blue or green to be found on ismy.blue.From an article in The G:
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/202..."
When you look around generally and see what colour schemes people wear, and how they decorate their homes, it is pretty obvious that we don't all see colours in the same way!
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "In my opinion it was a distinctly cowardly despicable act to put explosives in people’s pagers. The Israelis may be at war with Hezbollah but this is a true low..."The solution to the problem is not going to come in the lifetimes of any of us here I regret to say.
I can remember when it all kicked of again in the Balkans in the 1990s i thought "hang on a minute, I was learning about this for O level history covering a century before."
scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "In my opinion it was a distinctly cowardly despicable act to put explosives in people’s pagers. The Israelis may be at war with Hezbollah but this is a true low in human behaviour,..."Then you look at how Hamas put their armouries in, under and around schools and hospitals. No moral high ground on either side.
scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "In my opinion it was a distinctly cowardly despicable act to put explosives in people’s pagers. The Israelis may be at war with Hezbollah but this is a true low in human behaviour,..."The bombing of women and children in Gaza breaks my heart. The act of putting explosives into the pagers which reports are crediting the Israelis seems particularly sneaky. - it feels so wrong . whoever is the enemy, to target thousands of people with no thought for others like the two children that we know of so far in such a way - it’s not like a battle or the wearers would have any means to defend themselves , that’s what I find horrifying.
One of the schools where I taught had a large catchment of Jewish children and I remember remarking often how well those families cared for and about children - I wouldn’t do so now - Israelis seem to me to have lost their humanity. Just how I feel.
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Gulliver’s Travels (other topics)Gulliver’s Travels (other topics)
Animal Farm (other topics)
Gulliver’s Travels (other topics)
Gulliver’s Travels (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Edward St. Aubyn (other topics)Tom De Haven (other topics)
