Ersatz TLS discussion

I apologize for the tardiness of this announcement, but apparently today is National Pretzel Day (in the U.S. only, I assume.)

Left over from last week's birthday list - Shakespeare and His Stuff

From this week's literary birthday list: Harper Lee's only recorded interview about To Kill a Mockingbird.

Also from this week's literary birthday list: Joseph Heller's Catch-22 generated a lively discussion, back in the days of The Guardian's Reading Group, here, here, here, and here.

And here are the Literary Birthdays - 26th April through 2nd May, themselves.

Afternoon all, i hope we are well, the sun shines on endlessly in the shires (i prefer rain and cloud), though temps are a little lower than last weeks(where it it reached 16-17c)

Am going to start The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy this week. The final novel in his triology of the militarydefeats that France suffered from 1954-62, as they tried to hang on to the overseas French posessions. This novel was written before the final defeat in Algeria and is mainly concerned with the 1958 May Crisis, where De Gaulle emerged to save a fractured nation.

The earlier novel The Centurions was a mix of the disastrous end of the Indochina Wars and the slow burning emergence of tensions in Algiers and then the whole nation of Algeria.

As people know here, i am fascinated with the legacy of European colonialism and the tortured withdrawal from it in the Cold War years. Its not easy to find Italian, Portugese or even French novels, concerned with these years but i have found quite a few and France has supplied the most.

I do not support or admire the colonial histories of these nations and mine but it does strike me how Britain somehow avoided the painful de-colonisation that marred 1950s France, 1960s Portugal and 1940s Italy. Although some might rightfully comment on the debacle in Aden and Suez, plus the monumental mistakes made in Ireland since 1921....in some ways Ireland was Britains Algeria

AB76 wrote: "Britain somehow avoided the painful de-colonisation that marred 1950s France, 1960s Portugal and 1940s Italy. Although..."

Superficially that may seem true - I did rather think so when younger , but the partition of India & Pakistan was pretty painful, no? Kenya and the Mau Mau? Admittedly the pain was in those countries rather than ours, perhaps that's what you meant.

AB76 wrote: "Afternoon all, i hope we are well, the sun shines on endlessly in the shires (i prefer rain and cloud), though temps are a little lower than last weeks(where it it reached 16-17c)

Am going to star..."

I'd have thought the partition of India qualified... The partition displaced between 10 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions.[2][3][4][5] There was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million with the number of Muslim deaths being more than Hindus and Sikhs.[1][d] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that affects their relationship to this day. (Wikipedia)

Unless @Gpfr has understood you right, and you are referring solely to repercussions within the boundaries of the colonial powers themselves, or unless that's "too early" for your time-frame.

If interested in cinematic representations, though, you could do a lot worse than look at Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo - which has a superb score by Ennio Morricone - and which was banned in France for 5 years after its release in 1966.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat...

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Afternoon all, i hope we are well, the sun shines on endlessly in the shires (i prefer rain and cloud), though temps are a little lower than last weeks(where it it reached 16-17c)

Am ..."

GPFR got me right, the Brits managed to escape personal entanglement and loss of life, in their colonial territories better than others in the colonial withdrawal. Two factors may contribute to this:

1. Unlike Britain, France,Portugal and to a far lesser extent Italy, all had significant "white" settler populations in the nations they tried to retain by force. Algeria had maybe 1 million white settlers, the Portugese a similar number accross two nations in Africa. (in comparison, the British left very few settlers in Kenya or India. Rather more in Rhodesia but thats a different situation)

2. As Scarlet mentions, the British left chaos and terror behind when they left, rather than engage in a futile attempt to gain control of Kenya or India. So the legacy of the british withdrawal was significant

So the actual impact on British citizens or soldiers was far less than France (two wars and the massive exodus of settlers) and Portugal (one long war and the massive exodus of settlers)

I will be watching the Battle of Algiers sometime in next few weeks, shocking how brutal the French paratroops were in the Casbah. I read Alleg's short account of his detention during the battle and its a stain on the french military. The French relationship with their heroes from that war always seems ambiguous...officers like Massu, Bigueard, Aussassses,St Marc,Erulin and others

Too late to respond to @Bill in last week's thread re. sentimantality in Dostoyevsky, so I'll do it here.

I'd agree completely that there are some sub-plots in FD that can justifiably be classed as 'sentimental'; where FD and Dickens part company is in those aspects leading to some sort of contrived 'happy ending' (Dickens).

FD's endings are (I think) cathartic, but there is no way anyone could describe them as 'happy endings' in the Hollywood sense! That is a crucial difference, IMO.

In any case - my main reason for preferring FD is not related to that aspect, but to the philosophical discussions and underpinnings for the character's actions in FD. In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy. IMO (perhaps you will disagree) social commentary is inclined to date (as does comedy), whereas philosophy concerns itself with the eternal problems... and therefore retains its relevance.

AB76 wrote: "Algeria had maybe 1 million white settlers...

Indeed - the 'Pieds-Noirs'... I can still recall a visit to southern France in the early 1960s, and asking my parents to explain the slogan 'OAS' painted on many walls...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organis....

At least most Pieds-Noirs got out of France in one piece - many of the unfortunate 'harkis' (Algerians who had fought on the French side) were lynched if they failed to escape.

Albert Camus' attempts to plot a middle course during the war of independence was doomed to failure, and earned him enemies on both sides:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

The assassination attempt by the OAS on de Gaulle in 1962 gave a starting point to Frederick Forsyth's thriller The Day of the Jackal, though I suspect that is not going to be of interest to you! (I haven't read it either, so can't comment).

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Algeria had maybe 1 million white settlers...

Indeed - the 'Pieds-Noirs'... I can still recall a visit to southern France in the early 1960s, and asking my parents to explain the slog..."

i have always loved the Day of the Jackal, was a favourite of my fathers too! As a n early teenager when i first saw the film and read the book, the OAS confused me.

Poor Camus, he really failed with his attempts to create a smoother future for his troubled homeland...

scarletnoir wrote: IMO (perhaps you will disagree) social commentary is inclined to date (as does comedy), whereas philosophy concerns itself with the eternal problems... and therefore retains its relevance.

I disagree. I am with Bertolt Brecht who has managed to express it most pithily in only eight words in the Threepenny Opera:

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.

scarletnoir wrote: "In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy."

Are there authors in English who you find provide philosophical discussions and underpinnings for the character's actions? I'm trying to think of some; Middlemarch comes to mind as a possibility.

Just added two striking images of women as Algeria celebrated its indepe3ndence in July 1962, taken by Marc Riboud

In one, a car full of young algerian women celebrate, smiles and flags

In another, a pieds noir woman walks past celebrating algerians with a brave countenance but an uneasy look on her face

See photos for the images

Bill wrote: “scarletnoir wrote: "In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy."

Are there authors in English who you find provide philosophical discussions and underpinnings for the character's actions? I'm trying to think of some; Middlemarchcomes to mind as a possibility.”

Two others that come to mind are Richardson’s Clarissa and Fielding’s Tom Jones. The first is heavily laden with philosopho-moral judgments on the characters’ actions, and it was certainly intended as a moral tale. I felt they added weight and depth to a tragic story and were intrinsic to the development of the plot. Richardson stands back and openly discusses the conduct of the characters and what they should do next. The second has many moralizing passages at the start of a chapter – I read somewhere that Fielding set out to emulate the seriousness of Richardson’s novel, published the year before - and frankly I found these passages both tedious and unconvincing and in the end skipped past them so I could get on with the delightful story. I haven’t found any other 18C novel that matches Clarissa for its tragic quality (and I’m including here the French and German novels I’ve read). It is monstrously long, 1500 pages in the large-format small-print 1985 Penguin edition. Balzac and other French writers enthused about Clarissa Harlowe, but they were reading it in a much abridged translation. It’s a pity it’s not more appreciated by English readers. There is at least one abridged version in English, cut by half or more by the looks of it; and have they abridged it by leaving out every philosophical sentence?

I finished Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro yesterday and this is a copy of my rather bland review on my book page for it contains no spoilers.

'The tale is told from Klara’s perspective, an odd mixture of naivety and acute observation of human relationships. The feeling of foreshadowing by Never Let Me Go never really left me.
Ishiguro’s style of writing, the deceptive simplicity of it all, makes one think quite deeply about certain issues, our attitude towards robots and vice versa.
I wait to read others comments with great interest. Overall I don’t think it was as powerful as Never Let Me Go or some of his others but it has left me wondering. The Buried Giant seeps back into thought often for the questions it poses and I suspect this one will too. '

However, I do think that it is quite an important book in some ways which asks some big questions ahead of its time maybe. In it the children, they all seem to be single children, can be ‘lifted’. This is not directly specified but I took it to mean that their intelligence was enhanced at a certain age. Parents could choose whether or not this happened, most took advantage. Colleges would hardly accept an ‘unlifted child’. It seemed something fundamentally wrong to me but I can imagine that many parents would think that ‘lifting ‘ was best for their child and bring them some satisfaction that they had done their best for their son or daughter. It doesn’t seem to have made people happier in the long run. A moral question?

Klara is an AF, an artificial friend, designed, manufactured so that a child, particularly in their early teens need never feel lonely. There are a host of questions raised by this, again not specified, but there beneath the text. Could a robot serve in place of a real child? Sometimes one hears people say things like ‘my dog/cat is my child’ or children are given electronic pets to care for. What happens to machines, robots, when they start to wear out or become obsolete? The book asks one to consider what is the essential difference between a sophisticated robot designed to serve and a human. So many questions…….

In many ways this is typical Ishiguro, thought provoking, the simplicity of the writing covering deep moral concerns.

'Morning all! It's grant application season. I found myself not reading a single word for pleasure in over 2 weeks (and thousands for monetary/masochistic reasons). That hasn't happened in decades. Maybe I skip a day or two here or there for exhaustion or over-business, but weeks at a time hasn't happened since I was a drunk with an overly destructive social life.
So, to wash away the milestones and personnel costs and contingency plans, I read the book I had intended to read before launching myself into grants: Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather.

I love Willa Cather!


This is my yearly rationing of the joy of reading Willa, and it wasn't quite up to the level of her towering magistery. Cather's strength is to write fully fleshed beings in harmony with a breath-taking nature. She's perhaps America's best writer of nature and wide-open spaces, up there with Stegner and Abbey and Muir.

So, the fact that Lucy Gayheartis a simple character study set mainly in Chicago, takes away a certain Catherness from her novel. Her characters are still more warm and supple than most, so it's certainly not a wasted effort, but it's not quite her best.

Now, I'm onto a book that LeatherCol recommended warmly The Garden of The Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

Paul wrote: " The Garden of The Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani...."

Excellent book! And good film too

Gpfr wrote: "Paul wrote: " The Garden of The Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani...."

Excellent book! And good film too"

i agree...i have read a lot of Bassani and he is one of the great italian writers. Ferrera and the Po Valley are his Wessex

The Praetorians has re-introduced me to the real life figure of General Raoul Salan, the french commander in Algeria

Salan emerged from WW2 (Free French) and Indochina as a much decorated hero, a small-ish southern frenchman known as secretive and silent. He became a major player in the 1958 crisis in Algiers and the failed putsch of 1961.

This led to him going underground in 1961 and becoming the head of the OAS, under the codename "soleil"(as in Louis 14the The Sun King). He then led this small Pied-Noirs dominated terrorist group in various murders and provactions aimed at collapsing the Evian accords of 1962, which had created an uneasy peace. I found an interesting French-Canadian article from the time that said the OAS funded itself from armed robberies and taxed the Pied-Noirs population in Algeria to raise revenue. Pressure was placed on non-payers, which could end up being fatal, the students and youths among the Pieds Noirs were the most fervent tax payers of the OAS

Salan seemed committed to almost following the ideals of the Nazi's who he fought so bravely in WW2. His arrest photo from late 1962 shows a anxious and haunted face on the world, he caused so much death and destruction

He has a small part in the novel, sitting inscrutably behind a desk at Algiers GHQ...he may feature more as the novel goes on

Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy."

Are there authors in English who you find provide philosophical discussions and underpinnings..."

I don't know if it fits the 'philosophical discussions' category but Great Expectations ticks many thought-provoking boxes, dealing with subjects such as identity, personal commitment, tolerance, redemption, tough not in a direct, literal way.

Another novel that raises many interesting philosophical questions (of a completely different nature) is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Dr Johnson & Mr Savage – Richard Holmes (1991)

A forensic study of the strange night-walking friendship between a socially inept young Johnson, newly arrived penniless in London, and the older Richard Savage, a whoring, brawling, briefly famous proto-Romantic poet and murderer. Savage, full of self-pity, claimed loudly that he was the outcast natural son of Earl Rivers by the married Lady Macclesfield, and he made her life hell. After his death Johnson wrote a laudatory Life. We learn from RH’s diligent research that Johnson’s account glides past a great many difficulties, and that Boswell in turn tried to steer as far away as he could – because, how could such a story fit with his picture of the grand, dignified, profoundly Christian moralist and man of letters? It is involving to a degree, and no doubt it is useful also to have the historical record set right. We see the occasional flash of poetic talent. Yet there are other times, it has to said, when one’s interest in this rather low tale flags, for all the attractiveness of RH’s empathy and skill.

From today's Guardian. These look fascinating and I will investigate further! For me, their appeal is much like that of the Judge Dee novels-a whodunnit-in this case a locked room mystery-combined with much detail about Old Japan.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

CCCubbon wrote: "However, I do think that it is quite an important book in some ways which asks some big questions ahead of its time maybe."

Do you read much science fiction? The kind of big questions you mention are often dealt with in SF, many in stories dating back decades. Adam Roberts discusses this in a piece I linked to some weeks ago, Klara and the Spoilers (the link in my old post seems to no longer connect). The question “Could a robot serve in place of a real child?” is directly addressed in the Brian Aldiss story “Super Toys Last All Summer Long”, which Roberts mentions.

Russell wrote: "Bill wrote: “scarletnoir wrote: "In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy."

Are there authors in English who you find provide philosophical discussions and ..."

Charlotte Brontë does so, specifically in Jane Eyre, where she discusses the limitations on the lives of women and their need for a wider field of action. While not as obvious as in Tom Jones or Clarissa, philosophy is part of the novel.

Georg wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: IMO (perhaps you will disagree) social commentary is inclined to date (as does comedy), whereas philosophy concerns itself with the eternal problems... and therefore retains its ..."

Fine. I tend to see social commentary as being very much linked to issues of the day - though of course some moral questions can be raised as a result. We'll agree to disagree.

Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy."

Are there authors in English who you find provide philosophical discussions and underpinnings..."

None that I am aware of - which is why, for serious reading, I prefer the Russians and the French. I suppose that Graham Greene asks a number of moral questions in his books, which often relate to his rather personal interpretation of Catholicism, but that's not quite the same thing. Of course, I am well able to enjoy stories without the philosophical aspect, but at the highest level its absence seems a rather serious oversight.

(I should add that there are plenty of authors I have not read, so any suggestions will be of interest. 'Middlemarch' does sound potentially interesting... thanks.)

scarletnoir wrote: "Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "In Dickens, we see a social conscience, and social commentary, but no philosophy."

Are there authors in English who you find provide philosophical discussions and ..."

Forster is certainly on the philosophical side of things with his writings i think, however the anglo-saxon mind always seems to be less aligned towards introspection and the discussions of why we are here etc. One thing i loved about the Russian classics when i was 22-26 was the endless tortured young men debating why they are here and what the purpose of life is.

Greene is similar, i find his novels are the most influenced by some of the european styles of the great british post-war readers....i would also suggest George Gissing as worthwhile exploring, however the Russians are in a class of their own for seriousness and high minded thought they are almost spiritual tomes.....the french, for me are more mixed and i think exploring Italian literature would interest you Scarlet (Moravia, Bassani, Di Annunzio, Pirandello, Svevo,Verga and Buzzatti)

Sandya wrote: "From today's Guardian. These look fascinating and I will investigate further! For me, their appeal is much like that of the Judge Dee novels-a whodunnit-in this case a locked room mystery-combined ..."

I have The Honjin Murders waiting to be read.

In the past few days, I've read 2 of the Arnaldur Indridason series with the retired detective Konrad, investigating past crimes with present-day repercussions: The Shadow District and Les fantômes de Reykjavik. I enjoyed them, although I got a bit confused at times in the first - there are 3 investigations into the same crime going on at different periods and I was sometimes confused about who knew what.

In between, I read The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard. Someone was praising The Transit of Venus recently, which I read and very much liked years ago - I'll read it again to see if my impression that it's better than The Great Fire (which I thought very good) still holds. The start of The Great Fire kept to the Japanese theme I've had recently. It's set in 1947, Aldred Leith has been travelling through China in order to write about it and subsequently spends some time near Hiroshima. There he meets a young Australian brother and sister...

Now I've just started - thanks to Lass - Linda Grant's The Cast Iron Shore. It's the first of her books I've read and it's shaping up nicely.

Gpfr wrote: "Sandya wrote: "From today's Guardian. These look fascinating and I will investigate further! For me, their appeal is much like that of the Judge Dee novels-a whodunnit-in this case a locked room my..."

I look forward to your review!

Bill wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "However, I do think that it is quite an important book in some ways which asks some big questions ahead of its time maybe."

Do you read much science fiction? The kind of big quest..."
No, a genre that I rarely read and, I suppose, that is why I found the underlying questions in this book interesting.
Briefly touched upon was the notion of two kinds of society, one all embracing of technology, the other not so.
This idea of ‘lifting’ raising the intellectual capacity of a child artificially really set me wondering. Could it almost be thought of as an extension of say, paying for your child to have extra lessons or sending him/her to private school to give them an advantage over others? Where should one draw the line?
It would be very easy to dismiss Klara as a simple tale, simply told but it is not and I have but mentioned a few thoughts

Finished the superb Dead Girls by Selva Almada and will deffo read her other works

Next "modern" read, following Almada, is a mid 1970s Australian detective/mystery novel , set in Hong Kong called "Yellowthread Street"

ITV in the UK made a tv series of this in 1990. It starred one of the McGann brothers and was an interesting, unusual and exotic cop drama

The novels havent been easy to get hold of until now, i read one of the series in a bargain paperback but this new copy is part of 3 books in the series published by Farrago Press.

CCCubbon wrote: "This idea of ‘lifting’ raising the intellectual capacity of a child artificially really set me wondering."

For SF treatments of artificially enhanced intelligence, the story / novel Flowers for Algernon is probably the locus classicus, though its setting is during the trial phase of such a process, not a society where it is widely available.

I am in a funk, and I am not sure why. It may be that there were enough depictions of gratuitous Nazi brutality in David Downing's prequel Wedding Station to cause me to search the shelves for some comfort in an old police procedural and Captain Heimrich. Not only that, but I have found another Captain Heimrich book at the library, so 'On Hold' it went.

Nothing like a murder just north of NYC in the countryside.

AB76 wrote: "One thing i loved about the Russian classics when i was 22-26 was the endless tortured young men debating why they are here and what the purpose of life is.

....i would also suggest George Gissing as worthwhile exploring"

The "tortured young men" you describe makes me think of The Razor's Edge; the association is purely based on the reputation of the Maugham novel, since I've never read it. I am inclined to avoid novels about "seekers", though I did go through a brief Hermann Hesse phase in high school.

I thought of George Gissing last week when the topic of Victorian novelists came up. For my money, he totally kicks Trollope's ass as a novelist, but even more than Dickens he seems a novelist concerned with "social problems".

Misc

@AB Thanks a lot first for the pictures by Jack London, these are truly striking!

I read about your interest in the Vietnam war(s), and Indochina as well, so I was wondering if you might be keen to read about it from the perspective of the Vietnamese, as opposed to the colonisers or foreign army soldiers or journalists?

I haven't read them all, far from it, and the majority have actually been written in French or English, as opposed to Vietnamese, but I thought you might still be tempted by some of them... Either Novel Without a Name or The Zenith by Dương Thu Hương, Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63 by Marcelino Truong, The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The General Retires and Other Stories by Nguyễn Huy Thiệp (many other Vietnamese authors, but having checked, they haven't been translated into English unfortunately).

Unrelated, but also spotted this last weekend on retracing Thomas Hardy's steps across north Dorset, and thought you might like it: Fifehead revisited: my ride through north Dorset’s mysterious past.

@Paul. Good luck with the grant writing, this can be gruelling, and the interviews can be even worse! On The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Gpfr has already mentioned the film - which I haven't seen - but I remember reading Bradshaw's laudatory take on it only a few months ago (plenty of spoilers probably, so beware!). https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020...

Leonard Pitts Jr - Freeman
I picked up on the review here last month by 'Storm' of this really great book. So thanks to you Storm for the tip. A great read.
Here's my review -

This book captures the moment of freedom for the slaves at the end of the American Civil war.

This moment is a time of conflicting emotions. There are both joys and fears for the characters in this book who are taking their first tentative steps to move forward with their lives in this changing world. The Southern white slave owners are not happy with the outcome of the war, many of those who fought did not do so for freedom for the slaves and many will not give up their ownership lightly. It is an uncertain time for both and the white population are feeling the threat from the inevitable changes and their diminishing power.

The story follows Sam, a well read former slave with a good job in a library in Philadelphia, who chooses this opportunity to leave this life and try to find his wife, still living as a slave in Mississippi. There is a complex family history which is slowly revealed and this provides the fire that propels Sam to undertake the 1000 mile journey on foot.

At the same time Prudence, a young white widow from Boston, is using her deceased father's money to follow his dreams of setting up a free school for coloureds in Burford, Mississippi. The family has property there to use for such a purpose and she has the drive and mindset to make this work. Her family background is also much more complex than she thinks.

This is a brutal journey for both Sam and Prudence, their naivety and determination traveling with them rising and diminishing as they face each new hurdle thrown in their paths. Each step forward is a step to be celebrated, a real achievement.

Leonard Pitts Jr is a great story teller, his characters are strong and believable and he manages to bring to the reader an understanding of what it was like to be black or white at this moment in American history. The tension and hatred from both sides is palpable throughout but also shining through is love and hope.

Where would we all be now without the driving force of love and hope?

This a great book that is well written and brings to life this dark time in American history as well as investigating the complexities of family values and assumptions.

Any Fay Weldon fans or former readers?

Not too long ago, I read a short story by Fay Weldon with the misleading, in this case tongue-in-cheek title, "In the Great War", which I liked.

Have now started reading Fay Weldon's The Cloning of Joanna May, which I must have found in Oxfam or a similar place quite long ago, but never read it. I picked it from the shelves on a whim this evening.

I like the first couple of pages, even though they start with fallen trees ("yowwwwllllll", as Idéfix, Astérix' little dog, would have it). There is a sense of sarcasm that currently agrees with me.

You can read the first pages of Weldon's novel here (if this link works, as I hope): https://www.google.de/books/edition/F...

Hope I will like the following, too!

@Hushpuppy: Neither the Persuasion reading group response nor you are forgotten. Sorry for the still-delay! At least I have made orderly notes, which I still need to write up into something like a text that makes sense... Hoping for the next weekend, which should be quieter than the last one.

Gpfr wrote: " there are 3 investigations into the same crime going on at different periods and I was sometimes confused about who knew what."

Sounds like Line of Duty!

Hushpuppy wrote: "Misc

@AB Thanks a lot first for the pictures by Jack London, these are truly striking!

I read about your interest in the Vietnam war(s), and Indochina as well, so I was wondering if you might be ..."

thanks hush, i have tried two Vietnamese novels but didnt like either of them. The Sympathizer had its moments and the Viets refugees in america sections were good but overall i didnt like it and i didnt like the Sorrow of War, while i have loved a lot of colonial fiction by the oppressed in africa and asia. I think there is probably a lot more Viet literature to be read, which hasnt been translated..

I have Dumb Luck, a 1930s Viet novel on my pile, in a horrible garish red cover which might be a better read...

thanks for the hardy link

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Any Fay Weldon fans or former readers?

Not too long ago, I read a short story by Fay Weldon with the misleading, in this case tongue-in-cheek title, "In the Great War", which I liked.

Have now st..." I think Praxis was my favourite of hers, it was a very long time ago, she was very much a trendy female novalist, of the feminist persuasion, of the late 70's Britain, to me. I was less keen on 'Life and love's of a she devil'. She-devil was made into quite an entertaining tv series, still the theme of revenge is not really one for me... A mixed bag really, but she did have a sharp and caustic turn of phrase, which can entertain, if you are in the mood, that is...

Hushpuppy wrote: "Misc

@AB Thanks a lot first for the pictures by Jack London, these are truly striking!

I read about your interest in the Vietnam war(s), and Indochina as well, so I was wondering if you might be ..."

The 'Garden of the Finzi-Continis' must be the first 'adult' novel that I probably read, around nine or so. I loved it. My mother was on the 'idle' side, and delegated me to get her 'popular romantic fiction' library books out for her. I always went for the story, as summed up on the inside cover. I was regularly 'grilled' by her on what she thought were my strange choices. Eventually I was banned from getting her books, and had to sneak my own 'adult' choices out of the library for myself...

I was not a fan of 'The Sympathizer', I could not understand how one of the people that the narrator counted as his best friends, unknown to him, had such politically polarised views to his own. Its surely one of the main thing you do notice, about your supposed best friends, their politics... especially in a war situation?...

Shelflife_wasBooklooker (36) wrote: "Any Fay Weldon fans or former readers?

Not too long ago, I read a short story by Fay Weldon with the misleading, in this case tongue-in-cheek title, "In the Great War", which I liked.

Have now st..."

I'm a longtime Weldon fan. The thing is, you've got to be in the mood for her, meaning feeling fed up with bloody men! She was always ahead of her time that regard. Ironically many people who don't take her prodigious quantity of work seriously underestimate her place in the canon of second wave feminist literature; it seems to be held against her that she is entertaining, witty rather than whining.

Magrat wrote: "I'm a longtime Weldon fan. The thing is, you've got to be in the mood for her...witty rather than whining,,,"

Exactly. I haven't read her for many years, but The Heart of the Country showed up in my brother's books and I've set it aside for a re-read.

Bill wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "This idea of ‘lifting’ raising the intellectual capacity of a child artificially really set me wondering."

For SF treatments of artificially enhanced intelligence, the story / novel Flowers for Algernon is probably the locus classicus, though its setting is during the trial phase of such a process, not a society where it is widely available."

I recommend the short story over the novel, personally - not that the latter is bad, but I found the short story was more effective in doing the same things. But it could be simply that that's the one I read first, so it left the bigger impression on me.

Best SF treatments of advanced intelligence I can think of at the moment are Olaf Stapledon's Odd John and Ted Chiang's story "Understand". Stapledon's title character is a mutant, so it isn't a matter of artificially enhanced intelligence, but Chiang's story fits the bill and is I think pretty sophisticated in its treatment of the subject, or so it seemed to me when I read it.

English-language philosophical novels - I think some of Joseph Conrad's might count, or at least some individual characters.

Tried the first few pages of Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and then Murakami's Norwegian Wood but found I wasn't in the mood for either of them. After these two false starts I've finally settled down with Beryl Bainbridge's Winter Garden, which is going along nicely.

Hushpuppy wrote: "Good luck with the grant writing, this can be gruelling, and the interviews can be even worse!"

Thanks Hushpuppy! The grants are mostly done and I generally don't mind them. The online conferences however...I didn't think there was a way to make scientific conferences less appealing or engaging. But putting it all on Zoom makes it two steps below open-heart surgery in my books.

Re Fay Weldon, I may have posted this recently, but was a fan of her work when she was “ in her pomp”. Saw her at the Ed Bookfest some years ago...good value for money. I may have mentioned here that I still have her “Letters to Alice. On First Reading Jane Austen”.

@Gpfr, good to hear you’re enjoying The Cast Iron Shore, and hope it leads you to reading other Linda Grant novels. I can recommend all of them. I particularly enjoyed The Clothes on their Backs, and.....oh, bugger it, they’re all good!

Have finished Retellacks superb set of essays on the Second Reich, studying that impressive stage in the mighty history of Germany. He offers many points to explore and an intellectual argument on how the revolutionary chaos of 1918 led to the slow march towards 1933 and the Nazi years

Next up, in my historical reading is English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson, based on two trips to England in the mid 19th century. I am looking foward to reading it and have secured a nice copy, not a POD disaster. the cover is an un-credited painting of Guildford High Street (not far from me), which i hadnt seen before

Paul wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Good luck with the grant writing, this can be gruelling, and the interviews can be even worse!"

Thanks Hushpuppy! The grants are mostly done and I generally don't mind them. Th..."
I found this article in today’s paper interesting, the experimental development using bacteria to gather microplastics . The other day I read about extracting oxygen from carbon dioxide, another article talking about extracting carbon from the atmosphere and burying it.
I don’t know if these technologies will work on the scale needed but do see them as signals of hope for the benefit of all life. It seems right that scientists should work with bacteria, fungi and plants now that we appreciate the damage done to the environment.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2...

But really just wanted to say how much the work of scientists in all fields is appreciated .

For all of you, who like myself, fall into longer phases of not reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...

Astonishingly this was posted in th Guardian's lifeandstyle section!