Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 17/02/2024
RussellinVT wrote: "Watched Enchanted April last night and loved it. Excellent work turning the book into a script, fab location, and top drawer acting.Took my mind off the Ukraine debacle. Makes me sick to think ab..."
I enjoyed watching it. It was beautifully filmed, and acted. It made me want to spend a month in April, in an Italian castle with a random collection of interesting people!...
Tam wrote: "I enjoyed watching it. It was beautifully filmed, and acted. It made me want to spend a month in April, in an Italian castle with a random collection of interesting people!..."
Oooooh, please can I come?
AB76 wrote: "The Trump show just keeps getting worse, humiliating Zelensky in a staged Mafia rub down was disgusting to see and Zelensky at least didnt go quietly into the nightBut yet again we have the USA a..."
I thought you might be interested in this, in John Naughton's column in the Guardian, which is a good examination of the various factors and histories of the moderation of social media, and the various factions that have been involved, and their evolution, and how that moderation has been handled, for various political aims... https://www.noemamag.com/the-great-de...
Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "The Trump show just keeps getting worse, humiliating Zelensky in a staged Mafia rub down was disgusting to see and Zelensky at least didnt go quietly into the nightBut yet again we h..."
thanks
Naipaul in Pakistan as part of Among The Believers is fascinatingI havent read anything in depth about Pakistan since the upheavals of the 1970s, as the execution of Bhutto Snr turned the nation into a more pious and backwards looking Islamic republic.
Naipaul with his wit and his intelligent eye for a story among people he meets and talks with is unveiling early 80s Karachi. Possibly the most interesting sentence so far is where he describes how the dictator Zia Ul Haq requested the clergy deliver a new set of rules and religious guidance, in a state which is majority Sunni. The fact being that unlike Shia Islam(think Iran), the sunni system has nor real hierarchy or organised clergy, so they were left rather confused at what they had to do.
Nevertheless Pakistan regressed from its post 1947 status as a corrupt but reasonably tolerant pluralist state, into a Islamic republic with very little tolerance for women, diversity and free speech
42 years after Naipaul visited, very little has changed, the state has stagnated more, where it isnt infiltrated by China and the army runs a parallel state of sponsoring terror groups and targeting prime ministers like Imran Khan(in jail right now)
Mod
The Fatherland Files by Volker Kutscher - vol. 4 of the Gereon Rath series. In this one, a number of people with links to Masuria get bumped off, and Rath has to travel there to pursue his investigations. In the meantime, his fiancée Charly is working undercover to try to gain more information about the first victim and those who might have wished him harm. As with the other books in the series, the plotting is well done (if improbable) and the pace is good. But I found this one even more interesting than the earlier books, as the author is getting into the heavier stuff of the political background...
We see how von Papen's minions take over the police (and indeed all power) in Prussia, while the cops stand by - too used to taking orders to intervene, even against what could be considered an illegal putsch against the Free State of Prussia - the 1932 Prussian coup d'état or Preußenschlag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Pr...
The book also covers the peculiar state of the Masurians, who considered themselves as Prussians and Protestants - and therefore voted to be 'German' in a referendum - despite their language being more akin to Polish.
I enjoy being pushed into researching subjects (in this case history) where my knowledge has significant gaps, but know that I don't have the patience to read full-length books on the subject. Just a brief perusal of the subjects show them to be extremely complex, and any full-ish explanation will of necessity become dense and a difficult read. This way, I can find out as much or as little as I want to.
I expect that the final book in the series will cover Hitler's rise to the chancellorship, eased by von Papen's ill-considered moves here.
scarletnoir wrote: "The Fatherland Files by Volker Kutscher - vol. 4 of the Gereon Rath series. In this one, a number of people with links to Masuria get bumped off, and Rath has to travel there to p..."
The various Protestant but non-German groups in IMperial Germany ( mostly Poles an Liths or Letts) is a very complex matter and while in Masuria religion was a good marker of who was Polish but Protestant(ie Masurians), in Silesia it was harder as most of the poles of mixed parentage or pro-German inclination were Catholic amid a Catholic majority.
Ice Station Zebra(1963) by Alistair Maclean is a good yarn so far, well paced and intelligent, following an american submarine searching for survivors at a polar base of which the title refersMaclean impressed me with HMS Ulysses a few years ago and this is just as good so far.
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RussellinVT wrote: "I see NYRB have brought out a translation of Monsieur Teste by Paul Valéry, a short book 50 years in the gestation...It is a good example of why I dislike designedly modernist works, because it is indeed a book without a heart..."Thanks - I won't bother. I tend not to like modernist writers (which is not a very precise tem as far as I can see). I quite liked some of Hamsun's early works, but apart from that - just no.
RussellinVT wrote: "I see NYRB have brought out a translation of Monsieur Teste by Paul Valéry, a short book 50 years in the gestation. I tried reading it in French, including the fragments left incomplete. I learned ..."scarletnoir wrote: "RussellinVT wrote: "I see NYRB have brought out a translation of Monsieur Teste by Paul Valéry, a short book 50 years in the gestation...It is a good example of why I dislike designedly modernist w..."
i am sort of on the fence with modernism. i avoid many of these works but after avoiding The Longest Journey by Forster due to its modernist label, i read it and loved it
Hamsun for me is more proto-extistentalist/pyschological than modernist and i have loved everything he wrote for its inner focus and style. Mysteries remains one of the most haunting novels i have read
I liked many of Hamsun's earlier books, but the later ones seem to have lost the spark.Coming back to modernism since I wrote my comment - I checked it out on Wikipedia and found this quote:
It is debatable when the modernist literary movement began, though some have chosen 1910 as roughly marking the beginning and quote novelist Virginia Woolf, who declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change "on or about December 1910."
Anyone who believes that is an idiot.
2025 continues to be a good reading year, with nine books read so far Right now, am enjoying: Among The Believers(Naipaul) 1982, the great VS Naipaul explores the Islamic faith in Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. I'm in the Pakistan section and its superb, he is mostly based in Sindh right now, in Karachi. Witty, wry and curious, Naipaul is a great non-fiction writer
Ice Station Zebra by Alistair Maclean 1963. I was keen on something lighter and action based after four literary novels but this ahs impressed me with its depth and tension builds, makes me feel cold just reading it!
Eastern Tales by Ferit Edgu 1995, am keen to read more Turkish lit in 2025-26 and have 4 novels lined up. This is a collection of short tales by the late Edgu set in the SE Turkey province of Hakkari, which is a Kurdish majority area, just north of Iraq, west of Iran. It fitted a winter to early spring read perfectly, mountains, snow and fog then moved into thaw and rain. a wild region, where the Kurds faced Turkish military persecution for decades. (Edgu was based there in the 1960s, working as a teacher in the mountains, on which a lot of his stories of the region are based)
Happy Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) to all pancake lovers out there! We will be enjoying Breton crêpes (savoury made from buckwheat flour - blé noir) and sweet pancakes later, with cider in my case. I was intrigued to find that celebrations at this time vary quite a bit, with the 'shrove' celebrations starting a few days earlier in some regions/countries. This investigation was provoked by the discovery from my current book The March Fallen that in the Rhineland (protagonist Gereon Rath is from Cologne), the main celebration is a carnival held on 'Rosenmontag' - translated into English as 'Rose Monday' BUT the 'rosen' doesn't refer to the flower at all. For those interested, I'll write more about this in the 'Words' sub-topic later today.
TLS has articles on Didion-Babitz and two appraisals of the Bradbury novel The History Man, articles to look foward to readingi have read some Didion and have a Babitz collection on pile for this summer, as for Bradbury, that novel is on my pile and am pondering whether to read it, the article may prompt me more
https://sawleyhistoricalsociety.org.u...I belong to this and went to the very entertaining talk on the history of pancakes last week!
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RussellinVT wrote: "Savoury pancakes? Sweet pancakes? It's a toss-up."Haha!
But no need to choose if you eat both!
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If you wanted to say or write, let alone do, anything critical of the state of affairs in poor, oppressed Germany, you had one simple option: get out. Britain, the workshop of the world, had a limitless demand for labour, absolutely uncontrolled borders, no limits or even registrations of residence, and a policy of never handing over anyone to any foreign power for any reason whatever.
giveusaclue wrote: "https://sawleyhistoricalsociety.org.u...I belong to this and went to the very entertaining talk on the history of pancakes last week!"
Definitely my sort of history - and the 'history of cheese making' sounds tempting too!
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "https://sawleyhistoricalsociety.org.u...I belong to this and went to the very entertaining talk on the history of pancakes last week!"
Definitely my sort of his..."
I am looking forward to the next talk on the Battle of Towton - Britain's bloodiest day..
AB76 wrote: "TLS has articles on Didion-Babitz and two appraisals of the Bradbury novel The History Man, articles to look foward to readingi have read some Didion and have a Babitz collection on pile for this..."
Hmm, that is one of the Bradbury's that I never got around to reading. I have two volumes of his collected short stories and I dip into them eevey once in a while. I find that I am enjoying him omre as an adult than I did as a kid
Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "TLS has articles on Didion-Babitz and two appraisals of the Bradbury novel The History Man, articles to look foward to readingi have read some Didion and have a Babitz collection on ..."
i did get him confused with Ray Bradbury once, in my teens,kept wondering why Ray wrote a novel about british campus life..lol
Whooooooops. I was really scratching my head trying to figure out when Ray had written that one
Paul wrote: "Whooooooops. I was really scratching my head trying to figure out when Ray had written that one"lol
i must read more Ray Bradbury actually and Kurt Vonnegut both are possibly my most "un-read" post war american authors, although there is no reason why i havent read more, as i like both of them
as i get older, i do like to mix genre's more, to try and break up a sequence of edgy, literary novels like i did with Ice Station Zebra this week. Short stories can be a good break up too
FT Weekend had a column on difficult reads, not just by style but by content, i'm not that keen on difficult reads if something more appealing is available but i#m not too bothered about grim content
AB76 wrote: "TLS has articles on Didion-Babitz and two appraisals of the Bradbury novel The History Man, articles to look foward to reading..."Let us know what they say - and your own opinion.
I read 'The History Man' a long time ago and disliked it - nasty and cynical - IMO, of course.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "TLS has articles on Didion-Babitz and two appraisals of the Bradbury novel The History Man, articles to look foward to reading..."Let us know what they say - and your own opinion.
I..."
i have to say my interest is more in at as a cultural study of it, rather than reading it, it doesnt appeal but i find i can be very objective with studies of books i havent or sometimes have read and can see the impact it may have had on society etc
the two reviews in the TLS were superbly written and informative on the 50 years anniversary of the novel and the redbrick university campus novel ideals and tensions. Sad to see from what i read that the novel includes seducing students, the old and aincient patriachy at work. I remember in my mid 90s student days the lecturers who had a young student in tow, usually 25 years younger and i dont think its a good thing at alll
The Word Tree by Tealinda Gersao(1996) is another novel from the Portugese Ultramar or overseas, where a small group of great novels have focused on the final decade of Portugese life in AfricaThe novel is set in the 1960s in Laurenco Marques(now Maputo) the largest city in Portugese Mozambique, where around 30% of the population are non-african(white, Goan Indian, mixed or chinese).
Told in a series of observational chapters so far it captures a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, the casual racism of the Portugese towards blacks and the wonders of a tropical world. South African tourists flock to the beaches of Laurenco Marques, the narrator describes the cafes and cinemas of the city, it seems like an idyll and while the situation in Angola was worse, Portugal lost Mozambique in 1974 at the same time.
AB76 wrote: "Sad to see from what i read that the novel includes seducing students, the old and aincient patriachy at work. I remember in my mid 90s student days the lecturers who had a young student in tow, usually 25 years younger and i dont think its a good thing at all.."Indeed - IIRC, the main protagonist not only shagged a student of his, he marked her work and took some delight in awarding it a low grade with a comment along the lines of "Just because I shagged you, I wasn't going to give you a better mark than it deserved". A very nasty bit of goods.
Not only does the book describe appallingly unprofessional behaviour, but cruel and sadistic ones at that. The book's popularity has always baffled me.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Sad to see from what i read that the novel includes seducing students, the old and aincient patriachy at work. I remember in my mid 90s student days the lecturers who had a young stude..."What novel was this?
Robert wrote: "What novel was this?.."The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury. A thoroughly unpleasant read - IMO, of course.
Edit: I read this a long time ago, and mainly just remember that it left a nasty taste in the mouth... but I have come across a more recent "appreciation" by John Crace of the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Is female cannibalism having a moment? After Han Kang's bafflingly successful The Vegetarian, 'Private Eye' this week reviews The Lamb by Lucy Rose. The review also mentions an incident from Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona, though it isn't clear whether the eater is male or female from the comment. Feminists biting back?(As a real vegetarian, not a fake one like Kang's, I find cannibalism an indigestible topic which I prefer to avoid, regardless of the gender of the indulger.)
scarletnoir wrote: "(As a real vegetarian, not a fake one like Kang's, I find cannibalism an indigestible topic which I prefer to avoid, regardless of the gender of the indulger.)."I'm with you on that one scarlet!
Robert wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Sad to see from what i read that the novel includes seducing students, the old and aincient patriachy at work. I remember in my mid 90s student days the lecturers w..."The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, the tLS had two essays on its 50th anniversary
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I'm not sure we're meant to think it a good thing :)
I was rather surprised to see that it was published in French in 2022, with a postface by David Lodge. A quote from that seems to indicate that it's this article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/200....
Gpfr wrote: "I'm not sure we're meant to think it a good thing :)"Oh, I daresay not.
The problem with 'The History Man' is that it's meant to be funny (I think), but fails dismally to amuse... unlike David Lodge's own campus novels. Either Lodge is being kind to a fellow writer and academic in his appraisal, or (a trap academics can fall into) he is seeing the cleverness of the book without 'reading' it as the man on the street (me) might do. It's just a nasty book, and not in a good way.
Edit: Lodge and Bradbury were colleagues in the same uni. department at one time, so it would have been surprising if Lodge was anything other than courteous in his review.
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/201..."
Interesting article, which is spot on regarding the new Basil-Spence type universities. It also explained for me the significance of History in the title. But it doesn’t make me want to read the book or watch the series, which up till now I’ve always got it mixed up with The History Boys, which I haven’t read or watched either. I suspect I would like it a lot better, like anything with Richard Griffiths in it.
RussellinVT wrote: "The History Boys, which I haven’t read or watched either. I suspect I would like it a lot better, like anything with Richard Griffiths in it..."Same here - I like the sadly deceased Griffiths, and read good things about the play by Alan Bennett.
scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "What novel was this?.."The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury. A thoroughly unpleasant read - IMO, of course.
Edit: I read this a long time ago, and mainly just remembe..."
Doesn't sound attractive.
Mod
A final example of what one learns. As we will all be aware, in the 1928 election the Nazi party share of the vote was peripheral (2.8%), and by the 1933 election it had exploded (43.9%). What explains the shift – the Depression, unemployment, brilliant Nazi media manipulation? All these things no doubt contributed, but years of analysis have identified one single factor that would have predicted whether between 1928 and 1933 a person switched to support the Nazis. Not age, class, gender, education, or job. It was: religion. The Nazi vote was a Protestant vote. Hawes produces two detailed patchwork maps. One highlights the areas where the Nazis gained 30% or more of the vote in 1933, largely to the north and east. The other highlights the majority Catholic areas, according to the 1934 census, largely to the south and west. The comparison is absolutely uncanny. You could superimpose one on the other and hardly see a difference.
RussellinVT wrote: "...years of analysis have identified one single factor that would have predicted whether between 1928 and 1933 a person switched to support the Nazis. Not age, class, gender, education, or job. It was: religion. The Nazi vote was a Protestant vote.."Fascinating - thanks for that. As it happens, I'm reading a book - The March Fallen by Volker Kutscher - where the 1933 election has just taken place, and the levers of power (including the police) are being taken over or 'overseen' by SA members who seem to be running a parallel organisation.
Some quotes:
‘You call yourself a democrat — but claim not to be a Social Democrat.’ Daluege furrowed his brow and threw Böhm a disapproving glance. ‘No doubt you are one of those who hasn’t understood the significance of the national uprising. Wake up, Detective Chief Inspector, the Republic is history! The new age begins now. Germany is on the up!’... ‘In times like these there are two types of German,’ Daluege continued. ‘Those who help build the new Germany and those who don’t. The question is: which type are you?’
He held the binman’s gaze and waited for him to continue. ‘Your case has been reassigned, and you will no longer be working at Alexanderplatz.’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ ‘You are being transferred to Köpenick, Detective Chief Inspector.’ ‘When . . . when does this transfer take effect?’ ‘Immediately, of course. What did you think? Get used to the pace of the new age! Now back to headquarters with you and clear your desk.
‘The truth is what I tell you. Or do you think a lieutenant’s word is worth more than that of his captain?’
I wonder if any of this sounds vaguely familiar?
What Russell posted also reminds me of a factor mentioned in Kutscher's previous book The Fatherland Files, with a substantial part of the tale taking place in Masuria, where in 1920 this Protestant area voted in a plebiscite with a huge majority to remain part of (German) Prussia rather than join the Polish republic.* Voting patterns in the 1930s followed the pattern Russell describes:The Nazi Party, having absorbed the conservative one, became the strongest party already in the Masurian constituencies in the elections of 1930[82] and received its best results in the poorest areas of Masuria with the highest rate of Polish speakers.[83] Especially in the elections of 1932 and 1933 they reached up to 81 percent of votes in the district of Neidenburg and 80 percent in the district of Lyck. (Wikipedia)
*I should point out that the exceptionally high % of the voters (99.32%) choosing East Prussia was exaggerated by the intimidation of those who regarded themselves as Polish - however, even allowing for that, there must have been a significant majority who saw themselves as 'protestant Prussians' and not 'Catholic Poles'.
RussellinVT wrote: "I finished The Shortest History of Germany, from earliest times to today’s invasion of Ukraine, a polemic for a Western-facing Germany that will not be drawn off by the regions east of the Elbe to ..."fascinating Russell, i do wonder what attracted the Protestants to a basically godless cult, of all classes too it seems. maybe they felt they were the losers in the new Weimar Republic, though i cant see why that would be, they remained a majority till almost the 1960s in Germany as a whole.
A theory that the Protestant sects might be a reason, could hold water in the US or UK where there are or were numerous divisions and ideas of individualism but in Germany the Protestants were far less diverse, barely 7-8% were of non-Lutheran groups and hardly could be called dissenters, or just didnt have the influence in business and culture like say the Methodists or other Protestant groups in the UK had.
RussellinVT wrote: "I finished The Shortest History of Germany, from earliest times to today’s invasion of Ukraine, a polemic for a Western-facing Germany that will not be drawn off by the regions east of the Elbe to ..."Does this mean that the largely pro-Nazi north east of Germany in 1933 then went on to become communist East Germany after WW-II. I often find myself wondering how did we get from there ... to here... i.m also a bit puzzled as I thought Bavaria was mostly Catholic, and pro-nazi voting on the whole, as well?
Tam wrote: "RussellinVT wrote: "I finished The Shortest History of Germany, from earliest times to today’s invasion of Ukraine, a polemic for a Western-facing Germany that will not be drawn off by the regions ..."in the first East German religious census of 1950, the majority wee Protestant but by 1970 and then 1987, the Protestant % had fallen significantly and the atheists where in the majority. This was state policy, though the Protestants in East Germany were still prominent at the end
without seeing the map Russ mentioned, Bavaria is an interesting state, its majority Catholic but the area of Franconia around Nuremburg was majority Protestant and i wonder if this highly populated region may have supplied a lot of the Bavaria Nazi vote as opposed to the powerful Catholic party.
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Tam – Like you I thought Bavaria was a Nazi bastion. Not so, according to Hawes. In that state as a whole the Nazis didn’t even reach 15% in 1930, the year he mentions Bavaria.
AB – No specific reference by Hawes to Nuremburg or Franconia, but the map suggests you’re right.
Here, I hope, is a copy of the two maps, or at least a page from postimage with a small picture you can click on.
(I see I made a slip – the map of the Nazi vote relates to the election in 1932, not 1933, but in 1932 they jumped to 37.7%, so it’s still amazing.)
“https://postimg.cc/jwrcDyMf/6afeec09”
RussellinVT wrote: "Thanks for all those Germany posts.Tam – Like you I thought Bavaria was a Nazi bastion. Not so, according to Hawes. In that state as a whole the Nazis didn’t even reach 15% in 1930, the year he m..."
i would imagine there are going to be more books on this topic from Germany. the catch with censuses in europe on religion, (always far better than the UK where only ONE, yes one census ever included religion and that was 1851), is that its not based on faith as in church going but much more on upbringing, as far as i can see. So how much of the "protestant" Nazi vote was lapsed and not actually that religious is somehting that may never be able to be captured
for example, i grew up in a moderate Anglican household on my mothers side, i'm still quite religious and for a census i would declare "Anglican" but i'm in no way connected to a church where i live and dont attend church.
Although i cannot imagine why a non-religious German Nazi voter would declare they were Protestant unless it was "baptised faith, or religion at birth", meaning as an adult, no faith at all. One other thought is the bond between Protestants and the state, the old Imperial nostalgia, being a factor
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
The Fatherland Files (other topics)The March Fallen (other topics)
The History Man (other topics)
The Lamb (other topics)
The Vegetarian (other topics)
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