Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 23/09/2024
Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The Fall of Scotland Yard (1977), an Oxfam find, is a brilliant detailed account of serious corruption in the Met between 1967-76.Written by a trio of Times journ..."
i hadnt heard about that one but there was a lot of bent activity in that period, which saw major arrests, convictions and reforms
Two close police friends were convicted and sent to prison on false evidence and later released. They would have likely featured in your book but were proved innocent after it was published if your dates are correct. They are both dead now, terrible damage done to a couple of good men.
Of course there are a few bad apples in any scenario but when you look at what the police have to put up with and what they see in their line of work, it makes you wonder why anyone wants to be one.
giveusaclue wrote: "But then he may have sent you to A&E!.."Very possibly - but I believe that a GP would at least have carried out his own inspection of the knee, and would have been in a position to inform A&E of their preliminary conclusions. As it was, in A&E I was 'examined' by someone who was not medically qualified (an 'assistant'), whose report to the invisible doc must have been as inadequate as what happened next...
CCCubbon wrote: "Two close police friends were convicted and sent to prison on false evidence and later released. They would have likely featured in your book but were proved innocent after it was published if your..."No doubt these things can go both ways - in the excellent TV drama 'Line of Duty', the suspect cops are sometimes guilty and sometimes 'fitted up'. And, of course, there are grey areas...
I think the problem with the Met is that their leaders, over the decades, have for the most part prioritised defending the institution over weeding out the bad apples - despite promises to act.
giveusaclue wrote: "Of course there are a few bad apples in any scenario but when you look at what the police have to put up with and what they see in their line of work, it makes you wonder why anyone wants to be one."Well, I have an answer from my latest book by the excellent Percival Everett - The Trees. Few authors could manage to start with a couple of gruesome murders - and yet make the scenes LOL funny. He is breathtakingly skilful, whether employing his very wide and sophisticated vocabulary or in using rather shorter Anglo-Saxon terms for effect, as in those chapters.
Anyway, later on three black cops have been sent to the town of Money, Mississippi (I thought he name was a joke, but it really exists) - though Everett's reference to the suburb of 'Small Change' may not be strictly accurate... The town is full of white racists, KKK members and generally a not very bright population who 'believe it is still 1950'. The cops are discussing their choice of career:
"Why did you become a cop?" Jim asked.
"Why did you?" Hind asked.
Jim and Ed together, "So Whitey wouldn't be the only one in the room with a gun."
Hind fist-bumped Jim.
Sounds like a good reason to me.
scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Two close police friends were convicted and sent to prison on false evidence and later released. They would have likely featured in your book but were proved innocent after it was ..."yes, its very sad that 50 years since the corruption of the 1970s, that things are still going on, the approach to women needs major improvements. Thankfully the bent cops in the 1970s were disgraced, fired or convicted but quite a who helped expose these villains were put under a lot of stress and faced daily intimidation and obstruction by the bent cop system
The NHS has been exceptionally good to me, and are keeping an eye on me with regular blood tests and consultations,
Living now under the Italian system and previously under the American one, I have to say that I really appreciate the availability of free healthcare. But in Italy the parallel courses of private and public healthcare are slowly suffocating medicine. As it is, costs aside, I always have found the quality of health care in the USA to generally be superior. Mostly due to the more rigorous training of MDs stateside and a more interventionist approach. In Italy, 9 times out of 10 a doctor will say "Yeah, that doesn't look good, but let's leave it be, it'll probably work itself out," Which is rarely the most likely outcome
On top of that, the costs of eye care, glasses, dentistry and psychotherapy aren't covered in the Italian health systems and theit costs are quite high. Particularly for psychology, a practice which is far less prevalent in this country despite Italians being in serious need of antidepressants
Paul wrote: "Living now under the Italian system and previously under the American one, I have to say that I really appreciate the availability of free healthcare. But in Italy the parallel courses of private a..."were you insured in the USA then, via employer health insurance? do the unemployed get any cover in the USA?
the NHS have treated me well in my 48 years so far (touch wood) but i have had no hospital stays or operations in that period, so my contact has been at GP level intermittently
Greenfairy wrote: "The NHS has been exceptionally good to me, and are keeping an eye on me with regular blood tests and consultations,"I have mostly done well with the NHS (emergency ops for broken bones, two types of cancer treatment - chemo in one case, 3 major ops in the other). But all of those happened either before the funding cuts of recent years, or so soon after that the effects hadn't begun to work through the system.
This current knee business is definitely my worst prolonged experience with the NHS, and I think shows how the whole system has been run down in recent years. (I did also pay for an expensive MRI around three years ago, since I had a major concern about yet another cancer... no major worry was the opinion after that. Again, it looked as if I'd be waiting a long time for an NHS MRI, though TBF I did get one a couple of months later...)
AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands of employees. So my monthly insurance payments very small.
At the time, states had the COBRA program which gave health insurance, not free, to the unemployed for up to a year. The health insurance scam over there works well if you work for a large company with enough employees to negotiate low premiums. If you're self-employed you might as throw yourself to the coyotes
Following the death of that wonderful actress Maggie Smith, I have been reading articles about her. She appeared, aged 85, in a 100 minute monologue based on interviews with Goebbels' secretary Brunhilde Pomsel. The play 'A German Life' was written by Christopher Hampton, who initially wondered whether it was possible to find a way in to Pomsel's story... Pomsel denied all knowledge of the Holocaust. I think what he has to say about that encapsulates a lot about the type of writing, examining moral choices in real situations, which fascinates me most in fiction:
“Whenever she talks about the ‘Jewish problem’ or her Jewish friends … the grammar breaks up in a curious way, she’s stumbling and the sentences trail off.
“So at the end of 235 pages, I almost believed her. I almost believed that she didn’t know what was going on because she was so resolutely uninterested in anything except going to work, getting paid, going to the local restaurant with her friends, doing what she was told.
“I thought maybe I can write a play where the audience has to decide what she knew or didn’t know. And in making that decision maybe the audience starts thinking about themselves and what they would have done in those extraordinary circumstances.”
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
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Interesting post, scarlet.
On reading the different articles, I realise I must have seen her on stage as Desdemona with Olivier as Othello. However his performance was so overwhelmingly "look at me", that I don't remember anything about any of the other actors.
You may guess from that remark that I was not admiring of that performance :). He was better in Congreve's "Love for Love" around the same time.
Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands of employees. So my monthly insurance payments very sma..."
interesting, so the small-business owners and self employed are the real losers? so i guess in a large company, healthcare is part of your package, you get it from day one, at all levels of the business?
scarletnoir wrote: "Following the death of that wonderful actress Maggie Smith, I have been reading articles about her. She appeared, aged 85, in a 100 minute monologue based on interviews with Goebbels' secretary Bru..."great actress and a real character
Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Following the death of that wonderful actress Maggie Smith, I have been reading articles about her. ..."Interesting post, scarlet.
On reading the different articles, I realis..."
Not an admirer of Olivier's Henry V either
I agree that Olivier tended to over-do it - not one of my favourite actors, though good in Hitchcock's 'Rebecca' and in Schlesinger's 'Marathon Man' with Dustin Hoffman. "Look at ME!" type actors are rather wearing. I prefer a more subtle approach.
by Raymond QueneauAn unusual book, and apparently Queneau's first popular success. It seems that he initially intended a sort of cop story, but changed tack and ended up with a rather strange mixture described in French Wikipedia as 'a burlesque parody of many romanesque forms (full of) many picturesque characters... with also a meditation on identity and truth'.
I think that's rather over-selling it, but it does have its moments. I certainly would not praise the plotting, though!
It starts with foul-mouthed 11-year-old Zazie being farmed out to her uncle Gabriel by her mother, who is going to spend a dirty weekend with her 'jules'. No more is seen of the mother until the end of the book, though according to Zazie she killed her father with an axe blow to the head, only to be released as it was considered a justified homicide (IIRC, we never discover whether this is true or fantasy - not that it matters. It's that sort of book.)
Zazie is obsessed with going for a turn on the metro, but it's on strike. Follows a large number of bizarre and absurd scenes involving Zazie, Gabriel and his friends, and an odd character who, chameleon-like, takes on many different guises...
There is a great deal of amusing word-play and linguistic inventiveness, coupled with the humour relating in part to Zazie's rudeness - she keeps asking Gabriel if he is a 'hormosessuel'... (He is in fact a female impersonator, though his sexuality is never defined.)
I enjoyed the first 100 pages or so... after that, either the author ran out of inspiration or I got tired of the incessant cleverness. Who knows? The last 6 pages took me several weeks to read - or rather, it took me that long to find the energy to polish them off. Rather 'drowning within sight of shore'.
I think anyone who loves language and has a decent grasp of French could have a lot of fun with the first half of this book; to finish it with enjoyment all the way through, you'll need more stamina than I possess.
scarletnoir wrote: "I enjoyed the first 100 pages or so... after that, either the author ran out of inspiration or I got tired of the incessant cleverness.."I agree on that. I have enjoyed Mick Herron's books but think he sometimes feels it necessary to include a lot of obscure words to show how clever he is.
scarletnoir wrote: " by Raymond QueneauAn unusual book, and apparently Queneau's first popular success. It seems that he initially intended a sort of cop story, but changed tack..."
The yarn about the killing of her father? Fiction, of course.
Since Zazie reads the tabloids and swears by every word, it stands to reason that she would make up a tabloid-type story. Especially since, if I recall, she was telling this yarn to the "type," to whom she owed nothing and hoped to brush off.
scarletnoir wrote: " by Raymond QueneauAn unusual book, and apparently Queneau's first popular success. It seems that he initially intended a sort of cop story, but changed tack..."
Great review, I plan on reading Zazie on the next few months
Robert wrote: "The yarn about the killing of her father? Fiction, of course.."Very likely - and you give good reasons. I'm almost certain that there is no corroboration from any other character, and Zazie's relationship with the truth is (as with Boris Johnson) rather 'fluid'.
Paul wrote: "Great review, I plan on reading Zazie on the next few months..."Thanks! And if you do read it, let us know whether you managed to enjoy a bit... quite a lot.... or all of it.
I felt the author got the balance between ordinary everyday language/neologisms/slang/ and occasional more sophisticated terms very well early on.
Later, it seemed as if the effort of writing in vernacular got too much for him, so the balance changed, with far more abstruse words being used by the proletarian characters, and less slang and fewer inventions... so it became altogether heavier to read, and less fun. But there's no denying it's an unusual and inventive novel, well worth a look.
Edit: I forgot to mention there is a film version directed by Louis Malle and starring the brilliant Philippe Noiret... Since the book is so much about words and language, and since the plot is absurd, I'm not at all sure how successful this is - it does score 6.9 on IMDB... Perhaps it works in its own terms, but surely can't recreate the experience of the novel... I don't see how. I'll try to see it sometime...
scarletnoir wrote: "Paul wrote: "Great review, I plan on reading Zazie on the next few months..."Thanks! And if you do read it, let us know whether you managed to enjoy a bit... quite a lot.... or all of it.
I fel..."
"There you see the postwar generation."
When Queneau died in 2003, The Economist's obituary mentioned Zazie as one of the rare books with a following among both French academics and French readers. One Paris newspaper ran the headline "Zazie in mourning."
Paris invaded by mouth is the best summary of the story I can come up with. Perhaps she was a distinctive type of the postwar generation.
The film director tried cartoonish action in place of the novel's verbal twists and turns. A tribute to Warners' animation in the chase scene...
Am just about to start The Shipyard by Carlos Onetti(1961)Onetti was one of the leading writers in the Southern Cone area from the 1930s to 1990s but has not been as well received as his peers in the english speaking world
He spent much of his life in exile, like many south american writers, sometimes in Buenos Aires and then in Spain after falling foul of the Uruguyan military junta in the mid 70s
I enjoyed A Brief Life and No Mans Land by Onetti and am looking foward to this.
Robert wrote: "The film director tried cartoonish action in place of the novel's verbal twists and turns.."That is certainly the impression I got from the trailer (available on IMDB). So - whether it works or not, it certainly must be very different to the book... unless one thinks the book is 'about' the plot. But I don't.
AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands of employees. So my monthly insurance paym..."
Small business owners, and sole practitioners, are alone on a murky sea as far as insurance is concerned.
I read Zazie several years ago in French when I was just beginning to feel confidant enough to attempt something like that in the original. It was probably too early - I'm sure much of the wordplay and other subtleties were lost on me - but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I think I'll try it again when I get to 1959 in my ongoing excursion to or through the 50s, though I'm not sure my French has improved all that much since then. I remember the big set-piece at the end striking me at the time as very cinematic - and specifically reminded me of the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the fictional world of the movie/novel being broken into by the world of the viewer/reader (to anyone who's seen that film recently, does that sound right?).
It's been some while since I read the book and also since I watched Holy Grail, so all these impressions are garbled and may well be completely off the mark. I look forward to hearing Paul's reaction after he reads Zazie.
Berkley wrote: "I read Zazie several years ago in French when I was just beginning to feel confidant enough to attempt something like that in the original. It was probably too early - I'm sure much of the wordplay..."It's certainly not an easy read for a non-native speaker! Either I got a bit exhausted as the book wore on, or the author's game dropped off a bit... author or reader? Who knows?
I can add that both my wife (French) and daughter (bilingual) "had to" read this book as part of their studies - and neither managed to finish it - which may mean that as I suggested, it can be great fun for a while (if you like language and wordplay) but that the spell doesn't last.
I was a bit bored of it by the end, but was amused by the joke when the widow gets shot, and knows she is about to die* - and comes out with this (my approximate translation):
"But I have remittance income!"
*Hardly a 'spoiler' as it's not a book 'about' plot, but if anyone disagrees let me know and I'll delete or hide this bit.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands of employees. So my monthly i..."
how strange, it feels like capitalist heartlands were left out of the medicare plans, was this because they didnt want it anyway? how did corporations get such a good deal in the land of Reagonimics? individualism doesnt rule...lol
tories in uk worship small business as something religious, i thought the same would occur in the USA. I guess i'm missing the burden insurance puts on smaller firms and sole practitioners?
AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands of employees. ..."
We had Medicare insurance starting in the 1960s, which was aimed at retirees, and some welfare-type medical coverage after, for the blind, the disabled, and single parents.
I once asked a young woman (working single mother) why she stayed on welfare, given the minimal amount of money she received. "I do it for the medical coverage." I said "You qualify for a medical-only program," she perked up, and I set up a medical package for herself and her children, renewable every six months.
As a state employee, I had the government's medical package. My father and mother had his military coverage, and he kept coverage for my younger sister as long as allowed. And for the rest of us--
A lot was politics. In the early 1970s, Senator Kennedy proposed a broad state insurance scheme, while Nixon proposed a different broad scheme, with participation by private insurance companies. It became a partisan issue. Certainly the Democrats didn't want to give Nixon credit for expanded medical coverage.
The Democrats controlled both houses of Congress; neither plan passed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (later a UN ambassador and a US Senator) observed that "Thirty years from now, we may look back and decide that the Nixon plan wasn't so bad."
Moynihan was right.
When Clinton was President, a similar pattern followed. Bill presented a program; Hillary did backstage negotiations with some big insurance companies; only Congress was left out.
No, Congress and the medium-sized insurance companies were left out, and a medium-sized US insurance company is a large wealthy organization.
The midsized insurance companies fought hard; the Congressional barons resented having the whole package shoved on them; Bob Dole, the Senate minority leader, suggested compromise. In similar circumstances, LBJ made the Senate minority leader, Everett Dirkson, his Senate floor leader on the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. The Senate barons of that era were bypassed, Old Ev got to be hero for a day, and Johnson got his bill.
The Clintons were not so adept. They did not want to share credit. Despite their majority, the Democratic factions did not act, the bill bogged down, and the Clintons got credit for nothing at all.
Finally, Obama came in, the private insurance companies were dealt in, many little compromises were made, and Obamacare came into the world, not so different in principle from the Nixon plan.
And here, stirring my egg, I wonder "Is this capitalism?" My stepson indignantly replies that it's crony capitalism, that the big insurers and the big hospital chains have their safe territories. And here we are....
The Trees by Percival EverettThis is another brilliant book by one of my favourite living writers (along with Jonathan Coe, Anne Tyler, François-Henri Désérable and maybe one or two others - an eclectic bunch). This time last year, I had never read anything by Everett... but now this is the fourth, along with 'Erasure', 'Dr No' and 'So much blue'. Everett is on the shortlist for the Booker this year, and I hope he gets it...
But... it's not going to be for everyone.
It's difficult to review this book without giving too much away as spoilers... even though the book is not 'about' plot as such, if that makes any sense. But I think I can mention that its underlying theme is the history of lynching in the USA, and the way in which perpetrators almost invariably got off scot-free. Despite it frequently being LOL funny, it is at heart deadly serious in intent. As with 'Catch-22', for example, the further you get into the book, the more laughter sticks in the throat... though it never ceases to retain a little lightness to go with the gruesomeness.
Everett uses humour and - indeed - derision as a weapon to attack the racists in our midst. To this end, he uses a plethora of f- and n-words, which may not sit well with those with weak stomachs... the descriptions of the bodies may be a bit much for some, too (actually, these are written in such a way as to provoke laughter, and definitely succeeded in my case).
If you are rooting for the underdog and can take that sort of humour, you'll enjoy this book.
If you have even 1% of racist in your DNA, or have a faded MAGA cap in the back of your wardrobe, you won't.
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands o..."
Very interesting. Politicians rarely see the bigger picture...
So Obamacare is not very different to Nixon's plan? And yet, many (Republicans? or Democrats as well?) seem dissatisfied. From this side of the Atlantic, it's not clear to me whether it's being criticised for going too far, or not far enough - maybe both depending on your POV?
In my 'no skin in the game' way, I tend to assume that Obamacare is 'better than nothing', but obviously would not wish to be drawn into an argument with someone who knows a lot more about it than I do!
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul wrote: Yes, I had full healthcare insurance from my employer. At the time it was a state University with 10s of thousands o..."
thanks for this robert, its remarkable how perilous healthcare can be over there, politics seems to have played its part in denying progress as always.
we are lucky here that the NHS is sort of enshrined, as the tories would love a market influx, private care and the usual libertarian muck that covid exposed. the private healthcare lobby is aggressive and has been pandered to since 1979 by Thatcher but remains on the margins here
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In The G, maybe last year, there was an article about a show by Ballets Jazz Montréal to the music of Cohen. I thought I'd really like to see that — 3 weeks ago I got an email from the Théâtre de Chatelet saying it was coming to Paris & immediately booked places for my daughter (who is also a fan) & myself.
So last night, 1hr20 of happiness. It was excellent, good dancers, well staged ... Two songs were sung (very well) by 2 of the dancers, So Long, Marianne and Hallelujah.
Cohen had agreed to the show and chosen the music, but died before rehearsals began. I've been looking at some reviews which are mixed. Yesterday's audience was enthusiastic.
Gpfr wrote: "Any Leonard Cohen fans?In The G, maybe last year, there was an article about a show by Ballets Jazz Montréal to the music of Cohen. I thought I'd really like to see that — 3 weeks ago I got an em..."
Cohen fan here, i have read his debut novel set in Montreal , The Favourite Game which i liked and have a few of his albums and he is a major Canadian voice
I dont think many people have explored his two novels, there is a collection of short stories out now as well
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I haven't read his novels. I've got one of his books of poems.
For the best of America was too weak to withstand the worst. Americans had indeed contributed amply to human thought. They had helped to emancipate philosophy from ancient fetters. They had served science by lavish and rigorous research. In astronomy, favoured by their costly instruments and clear atmosphere, they had done much to reveal the dispositions of the stars and galaxies. In literature, though often they behaved as barbarians, they had also conceived new modes of expression, and moods of thought not easily appreciated in Europe. They had also created a new and brilliant architecture. And their genius for organization worked upon a scale that was scarcely conceivable, let alone practicable, to other peoples. In fact their best minds faced old problems of theory and of valuation with a fresh innocence and courage, so that fogs of superstition were cleared away wherever these choice Americans were present. But these best were after all a minority in a huge wilderness of opinionated self-deceivers, in whom, surprisingly, an outworn religious dogma was championed with the intolerant optimism of youth. For this was essentially a race of bright, but arrested, adolescents. Something lacked which should have enabled them to grow up. One who looks back across the aeons to this remote people can see their fate already woven of their circumstance and their disposition, and can appreciate the grim jest that these, who seemed to themselves gifted to rejuvenate the planet, should have plunged it, inevitably, through spiritual desolation into senility and age-long night.- Olaf Stapledon, Last And First Men (1930)
Charles Marville, before Eugene Atget photographed the old Paris that Hausmann was sweeping away in the 1850s to 1860s, changing the dark, crowded streets of the city into the wide boulevards and smoothing the streets and buildings into formations of "good taste"(hmmmm...)I will attach the most interesting photo i found, google his views
Amit Chauduri has been a wonderful find for me, as i looked for modern english language Indian writers a few years back, i have a good pile of english language Indian writers from the 1900-1970 period but wanted to find others from more recent times While Sojourn promised more than it delivered, his much earlier novel Afternoon Raag is a wonderful novel of ideas and discursions with a strong theme about traditional indian music and the university city of Oxford
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My holiday reading was August Heat, one of the Inspector Montalbano stories by Camilleri. It was entertaining and atmospheric. Thank you to @scarletnoir for the link to places featuring in the TV adaptations. On the day we were passing through the Ragusa area I’m afraid we didn’t have enough time to explore them properly. Next visit.
The other book I read was Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. I think I’ve seen it condemned as a piece of worthless formulaic rubbish. I have to say I enjoyed it - a very decent mystery story, competently told, with a much better than average number of funny moments. I tried controlling my laughter but the bed was shaking so much my wife complained she couldn’t get to sleep.
We had an interesting chat with the owner of a Mondadori bookshop. I was looking for a suitable book to help me start reading Italian and had picked out a Camilleri from a series in a handsome dark blue format. She advised against, saying he writes in a style peculiar to himself, neither classic Italian nor normal contemporary. So, having really enjoyed and admired The Tartar Steppe I asked if instead she had something by Dino Buzzati, which of course she did. She suggested Sessanta Racconti (Sixty Short Stories), a collection dating from 1958, which looks just the ticket.
This and another nice Mondadori store both had unusually large philosophy sections. The same owner introduced me to books by a psychiatrist named Irvin Yalom which looked interesting – e.g. When Nietzsche Wept, The Schopenhauer Cure, The Spinoza Problem – but which I now see listed as “fiction”. She also enthused about quite another author, of whom I was vaguely aware and should probably know more– Kent Haruf. She had them all in Italian translation.
Those two stores both had a fair number of books in French, and I settled on a couple of slim volumes by Annie Ernaux, which will be the first of hers for me. Plus Proust, prix Goncourt – Une émeute littérraire by Thierry Laget, not to be resisted, and a novel-in-fragments by Philippe Claudel set in WWII, Fantaisie allemande, which was likewise too intriguing to pass up.
On a shelf in one of the places we stayed there was the first volume of La Force des choses by Simone De Beauvoir, not one of hers I knew about, and the first 40-50 pages, starting on the very day of Liberation, were an immediately interesting account of the post-war literary scene, so interesting I now have to get my own copy.
On the way back through Milan airport there was a Feltrinelli store with a surprisingly strong selection of books in English. I was very happy to pick up A Literary Tour of Italy, a collection of essays by Tim Parks mainly on twenty or so classic Italian authors. Most had been published in NYRB. One was his intro to the Penguin translation of The Tartar Steppe, very good to read afterwards, but not before, because it tells the story.
If this all sounds as if I had my head in a book the whole time, I really didn’t. I was far more occupied with good meals, good company, easy strolls (not too old to hold hands), wonderful churches and temples, great music in streets and squares, and merivigliose vistas of mountain and sea.
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In The G, maybe last year, there was an article about a show by Ballets Jazz Montréal to the music of Cohen. I thought I'd really like to see that..."
Very envious. I was a big fan in student days, and still put on a greatest hits CD every now and then to stir up those memories and the delicious melancholy. I read one of the novels, don’t remember which, and found it rather light. I liked the poetry better and have Poems 1956-1968 in front of me. They read a bit like lyrics, so it’s not a surprise to find here the glorious “Suzanne takes you down”. I saw somewhere that the real-life Suzanne objected strongly to his use of a private and intimate moment.
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You may be envious of my seeing Dance Me, I'm quite jealous of your Sicily trip :)
I've got the same volume of Cohen's poems.
Kent Haruf.
I don't remember who recommended Haruf on TLS, but I'm grateful to them — I see I started reading his books in 2018 and I loved them. I think you would like them.
Logger24 wrote: "I was looking for a suitable book to help me start reading Italian and had picked out a Camilleri from a series in a handsome dark blue format. She advised against, saying he writes in a style peculiar to himself, neither classic Italian nor normal contemporary. So, having really enjoyed and admired The Tartar Steppe I asked if instead she had something by Dino Buzzati, which of course she did. She suggested Sessanta Racconti (Sixty Short Stories)"Lucky you. Sicily is one of the few places I haven't yet been to in Italy and I'd really like to get there.
The manager at Mondadori gave you solid advice, Camillieri is not an easy read due to his use of dialect and weird diction. I've read him, even recently and there were times when I had no idea what the heck he was trying to get across.. I've read that Buzzati collection in Italian and they're all pretty easy to understand. Calvino and Ginzburg and Pavese and Cognetti are also all pretty straightforward and not too difficult to understand.
Logger24 wrote: "Back from a wonderful two weeks in Sicily – perfect weather, just one day of rain (though not so good for the orange groves and vineyards seriously damaged by drought). We’re already planning a ret..."So glad you had such a lovely holiday. i was there in 2003, the hottest year for ages. And it was HOT.
I tried reading a Montalbano when I was studying Italian. Unfortunately I hadn't got a Sicilian dictionary! One book I read based in Sicily was
I read it first in Italian then in English and enjoyed the Italian version better. It starts when the heroine has died and goes back over her life. Anther two books I read which have both been made into films were:
Volevi i pantaloni (our A level text)
and
Io Non Ho Paura which I liked better.
And of course you are never too old to hold hands!
Logger24 wrote: "Back from a wonderful two weeks in Sicily – perfect weather, just one day of rain (though not so good for the orange groves and vineyards seriously damaged by drought). We’re already planning a ret..."i love Mondadori, i read a great study of Italy from 1945-1955 and the publishing houses were a key part of the re-birth of presenting italian arts and design. There was some good studies of italian designers for posters and books too, i have however forgotten the names, though i do remember Bruno Munari.
Glad you had a good holiday and i read a collection of Buzzatti stories in the spring which were excellent. Though not in Italian!
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Death on the Tiber (other topics)Death on the Tiber (other topics)
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Zazie dans le métro (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Robert Coover (other topics)Kent Haruf (other topics)
Thanks G as always
Current reading is:
The End of Czechoslovakia, a selection of essays on the Velvet Divorce, where the ..."
sounds lovely...