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What Are We Reading? 16 March 2022
Slava Ukraini Ersatzers!Heavy rain in the shires, which i love, sadly looks like 10 days of blue skies and sun ahead, temperatures rising in March, i fear another warm year.
Am reading
....Schweblins disconcerting and unsettling Fever Dream has me gripped, such a slight novel but loaded with menace and threat.
The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East is a robust and questioning study of French Mandate Syria(1921-43) and its many religious and ethnic sects.
In Search of a Character by Graham Greene(non-fiction) is written in the momentous year of 1959 in the Congo, as the Belgian regime collapsed, though so far he hasnt mentioned it
Will be starting Two Friends by Alberto Moravia this evening....
LL - a well read rug installer....love that
Lljones wrote: "So, how do you all respond when asked "Have you read all these..."?""I haven't finished all of them yet".
I am currently reading A NoelKilling by M L Longworth and believe a clanger has been dropped. The victim has been poisoned by doliprane which I understand is paracetamol. He dropped dead with signs of burns round his mouth. But surely paracetamol kills, horribly, over a period of days? Agatha wouldn't have made this mistake.
Any doctors in the house?
Lljones wrote: "Hello again, all....This morning I woke up humming the Ukrainian National Anthem - a tune I wouldn't have recognized until recently.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/ar......"
My response - I have aspirations!😉
Meant to say thanks in the last thread to Lass and Andy for their responses to my Jane Gardam question: thanks! Currently reading my first John McGahern, Amongst Women: short, well-written novel about a family domineered over by a moody, self-focused patriarch. They all call him "Daddy" - even his wife! - and are continually on tenterhooks in his presence. One can't help thinking of Blake's name for the demanding, tantrum-prone god of monotheistic religion, Nobodaddy, and I think that is one of the themes at play here, though perhaps not the primary one. At heart, as the title would suggest, it's more about the everyday effects of patriarchy on its primary victims, women, though there are male victims too - including, in some sense or degree, the patriarch himself.
Stylistically, the first few pages struck me as almost Henry Green-like in the way they created an immediate impression of the action and circumstances but it seems to have settled down into a more conventional narrative pretty quickly.
Will be looking out for more McGahern - any suggestions?
giveusaclue wrote: "I am currently reading A NoelKilling by M L Longworth and believe a clanger has been dropped. The victim has been poisoned by doliprane which I understand is paracetamol. He dropped dead with sign..."
Doliprane is indeed a brand-name paracetamol, sold in France - from memory, it also exists in a weaker pink suspension (probably sweetened) for children, unless that's another similar product. I can't believe that unadulterated paracetamol would kill in the way described... but I'm not a doc. Any chance the cops will discover that it had been swapped for something else?
Berkley wrote: "Will be looking out for more McGahern - any suggestions?"McGahern only wrote 6 novels afaik... I have read them all. By some distance the most powerful and memorable, for me, were the two early novels: The Barracks and The Dark (for some reason, the GR search engine totally failed to turn up links to these books). These brutal books contained significant autobiographical details. The later books may perhaps show a more mature style - it's too long since I read most of them to judge - but the emotional content becomes attenuated as the years pass, giving way to an elegiac feel to his final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun.
Others will have read the books more recently than myself, and can no doubt provide fresher memories.
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I am currently reading A NoelKilling by M L Longworth and believe a clanger has been dropped. The victim has been poisoned by doliprane which I understand is paracetamol. He dr..."
Thanks scarlet. I finished the book and, no, it was still supposed to be the cause of death!
Mod
They're here: The Dark and The Barracks (search by author rather than book title sometimes works better).
I quite liked Amongst Women, Berkeley, thanks for the reminder.
giveusaclue wrote: "I am currently reading A NoelKilling by M L Longworth and believe a clanger has been dropped. The victim has been poisoned by doliprane which I understand is paracetamol. He dropped dead with sign..."
You are right: an overdose of paracetamol takes quite a while to kill somebody. Cause of death from an OD is liver failure.
Mod
These Names Make Clues, this time under the name of E.C.R. Lorac.Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard is invited to a treasure hunt. The host is a publisher and the other guests are writers. The participants take part in the game under a pseudonym given by their host - Macdonald's is Isaak Walton - and at the end of the evening are supposed to question each other to find out their real identities. Mayhem and mystery ensue!
Hi y'all, just wanted to drop by. I. haven't managed to post anything recently, while the amount of books I've been reading through the last weeks has grown steadily. I hope you are all doing well - at least as well as could be during these trying times. Writing posts requires a lot of concentration, which is in low supply as the baby is rolling up and down its blanket behaving much like a foul-tempered Smaug awakening on his treasure hoard. Most of the books I picked based on having been mentioned/recommended here. So thanks for that. So I guess I won't write at length about all of them I've read in the past few weeks, but bits here and there.
I wanted to add that I followed the conversation on Robert Walser with much interest. I am resolved to read some of his work very soon. I haven't done that until know, which I am almost ashamed to admit. One of the reasons, I think, is that I have kept mixing him up with Martin Walser, whose public persona and political views made me very much not wanting to read any of his stuff.
Mod
... the great bibliophile (Thomas Rawlinson) (d.1725). Initially pushed towards a career in law by his parents, he discovered that his interest in that was 'minimal'. Books were his thing, because of that sense of their potential for avoiding history's errors, a motive which crops up repeatedly among collectors. As young Thomas put it, the age needs 'Monitors to Goodness', so it was his duty to be 'foster-parent to orphaned books'... His grandfather ... had a soft spot for the boy's idealism and gave him a lifelong annuity, ring-fenced for book purchases.I particularly like the phrase I've highlighted in bold.
Lljones wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: ... (for some reason, the GR search engine totally failed to turn up links to these books)..."They're here: The Dark and The Barracks (search by aut..."
i enjoyed The Dark many years ago and apparently his mid 80s collection of short stories is well worth reading too
giveusaclue wrote: "Thanks scarlet. I finished the book and, no, (paracetamol poisoning) was still supposed to be the cause of death!"Without treatment, death from toxicity occurs 4 to 18 days later. (Wikipedia) - so the book was very badly researched - or not researched at all...
My favourite 'poisoning' murder occurred in an episode of Midsomer Murders, where a mushroom - a 'destroying angel' - is used. The victim is taken with stomach cramps and vomiting... the doc calls around and says:
'The good news is that you'll feel a bit better tomorrow...'
'Great!' interjects the victim...
'But', the doc continues, 'it's only a temporary reprieve. You'll be dead the day after!'
And so it came to pass.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0647487/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroy....
MK wrote: "I'll not say a word - https://www.opb.org/article/2022/03/1..."Owl Kitty rocks. The Titanic one might just be my favourite, I've watched it countless of times to pick myself up! There are also behind the scenes on their youtube channels for those geeky enough to want to know how the editing is done...
MK wrote: "I'll not say a word - https://www.opb.org/article/2022/03/1..."Very good - I look forward to their version of Psycho where it won't be BYOB, but 'bring your own claws'!
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Thanks scarlet. I finished the book and, no, (paracetamol poisoning) was still supposed to be the cause of death!"Without treatment, death from toxicity occurs 4 to 18 days l..."
Haha, (black humour). Now having been shown to be right I feel like a proper little know all.
Isn't there a disease (cholera type?) where you are ill and when you start to eat again you relapse and die or am I imagining things?
Georg wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "I am currently reading A NoelKilling by M L Longworth and believe a clanger has been dropped. The victim has been poisoned by doliprane which I understand is paracetamol. He dr..."
Thanks Georg, not the best way to commit suicide then!
A few from me from the last few days, start with the least enjoyable.. Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
The relevance of this book cannot be doubted, and nor can its message. The spectre of fascism that haunts the house Rumfitt creates is not so myserious, just a very unsubtle type of bogeyman.
Unsubtle is a good word to describe the whole book, which attempts to demonstrate how violence is often present in expressions of gender in modern Britain.
Following a horrifying night in an abandoned house that ended in phsyical scars and the loss of their friend, Alice and Ila have separated. Ila has fallen in with a group of gender-critical feminists fighting the so-called “current war on women,” and Alice is just about keeping her head above water making porn online, or sissification, as I have now discovered that it is called.
The rather loose plot follows the two women as they try to deal with the traumatic events that drove them apart.
Though I learnt some new words, I didn't enjoy it. I can respect it though, as a good example of how the horror genre can be used in so many different ways.
Onto two that I would recommend without hesitation.. C'est la Vie by Pascal Garnier translated by Jane Aitken.
Rather like the last chocolate in the box, I had been saving this, for several years. My final Garnier. With a tinge of sadness therefore, I took it from the shelf..
Author Jean-François Colombier, known to his friends as Jeff, is at something of a mid-life crisis, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He is out of money, bored by his work, an alcoholic, been through two divorces, and not surprisngly, struggling with his mental health.
Out of the blue though his life changes. His new book wins an important literary prize, which leads to a TV appearance, and to meeting his dream woman, who is half his age. It seems all to good to be true, and that is indeed what Jeff thinks, so he makes a run for it, to Lille, with his drug-dealing son.
This is a bit different than Garnier's previous work in that it isn't really a noir, there is much more humour, but it still bears his indellible trademarks; the twists in the last third, the unpredictability, the femme fatale, and of course, never a happy ending.
The title of the French original is not actually C'est la Vie. It is "Nul n'est à l'abri du succès", which I believe translates as 'No one is safe from success'. Note to the publisher - that the seems a much better title, pretty summarising what happens to Jeff in this highly entertaining little novel.
Having read more widely now than I had when I began Garnier's work, it is easy to see how much of an influence he was on other French writers. In this work where his dark humour is more evident, I saw the work of Antoine Laurain.
I will probably re-read some I have enjoyed the most one day, How's the Pain?, The A26, Too Close to the Edge, but for now Pascal at least, merci et au revoir..
and, Hunter with Harpoon by Markoosie Patsauq translated from Inuit by Valerie Henitiuk and Marc-Antoine Mahieu.
Originally published in 1969, this is regarded as the first Indigenous novel to published in Canada, and is based on Inuit folkore.
It concerns a 16 year old boy living in an Inuit community who have been relocated as part of the High Arctic Relocation Program. In the 1950s 92 Inuit were moved from Quebec to Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut. No support was provided for them. At the time the federal government described it as a humanitarian gesture to save the lives of starving people, but these days this is seen by many as a forced migration.
Just an aside, the temperature in Resolute today is -23C, and it has a mean annual temperature of -15C...
This is the background of Markoosie's story, which with a candour that belies its horrors, charts the nightmare that the community moved into.
At just less than 90 pages, this is a fascinating piece of work on so many levels, and deserves far better recognition. A reissue in December 2020 doesn't seem to have helped.
Markoosie himself created the first English adaptation of his novel in 1974; he was requested to “arrange” the text into English. Now a newer translation is available, and a hugely important one. Those translators, Valerie Henitiuk and Marc-Antoine Mahieu, believe that Markoosie was encouraged to water his story down, make it seem more like a children’s book, rather than what it was; the horror of an Inuit boy facing starvation, hypothermia, and a murderous polar bear.
Hushpuppy wrote: "Owl Kitty rocks. The Titanic one might just be my favourite"The Titanic parody is easily the best of the ones I've seen. For some of the others the 'behind the scenes' view is the best part, showing how the director persuaded his actress (her name is Lizzy) to strike a particular pose.
A brief trip to a small market town. Just enough time to nip into the charity shops, to add to my lengthy TBR. A good selection in most of them, many of which I’ve read, but came away with Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace, and Martin Walker’s Fatal Pursuit. @Clue will probably say I’m reading them out of order, but couldn’t resist.
Lass wrote: "Martin Walker’s Fatal Pursuit. @Clue will probably say I’m reading them out of order, but couldn’t resist."You're reading them out of order!! 🤣 Have you read my latest comments on the Aix en Provence series?
Glad to know you are getting out and about. I met a friend for lunch today, it only lasted 3½ hours!
Two Friends by Alberto Moravia (1951) was discovered in an old suitcase, after his deathIt is a collection of novellas concerned with the relationship between two young men. A naive intellectual with communist sympathies and an idle, cynical playboy.
The early stages are set in WW2, with the intellectual aware of a dual response to the Fascists he loathes, on one hand he finds Fascist company grating but he also curses the inaction that leaves him, like his family, in quiet acceptance of the regime. Moravia seems to be keen on marking the way that the poor and the vulnerable were used by the Fascists, the men at the front and conscripted were not well heeled university students or sons of the elite
In typical Moravian style, the style is sharp, sometimes harsh and relentlessly analytical which i love...
We are invited to submit comments for the Guardian's resuscitated WWR monthly column (thanks again, HP!)... here's the link for anyone with a suitable review:https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Doubt I'll send one this month, as I have already reviewed finished books and am unlikely to get through the one I'm on ATM before they close the page - I don't think the invitation stayed live for many days last time - I expect they get enough offers fairly quickly.
Andy wrote: "Onto two that I would recommend without hesitation.. C'est la Vie by Pascal Garnier translated by Jane Aitken.
"I tried a Garnier a couple of years ago, but it wasn't for me... grim and humourless (and I'm not indifferent to black humour, but there wasn't any - or if there was, it didn't work). It was called 'The Panda Affair'. I wonder if the 'jokes', if there are any, work better in French? But, TBH, I don't feel inclined to find out.
In a continued attempt to lighten our days (we need a bit of light ATM), thought I'd share this quote from a review of How Words Get Good: The Story of Making a Book by Rebecca Lee in today's 'Guardian':The most combative chapter, inevitably, concerns punctuation... authors are notoriously precious about these marks of rhythm. As Mark Twain wrote: “Yesterday Mr. Hall [his publisher] wrote that the printer’s proofreader was improving my punctuation for me, & I telegraphed orders to have him shot without giving him time to pray.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Edit: Having now read to the end of the piece, it's clear the reviewer was not impressed. He writes:
By the time I read: “The application of ‘sense’ to our words is one of the most vital ways they get good,” I was losing the will to live; once informed that “even Hitler was concerned with getting his words better”, I prayed that the author had fatally Godwinned her own scheme; but it went on, relentlessly, to the end.
Wonderful! I thought - another new word - what on earth can this 'Godwinned' mean? The G. usefully included a link - and it is a doozy (never used that one before, but sort of fancied it here!):
Godwin's law, short for Godwin's law (or rule) of Nazi analogies,[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.[2][3] In less mathematical terms, the longer the discussion, the more likely a Nazi comparison becomes, and with long enough discussions, it is a certainty. (Wikipedia)
ROLF!
I'm a little more sympathetic to the motivations behind "Godwinning", at least in some cases, than most people I've come across: I think it often happens because Hitler and the Nazis are one of the few things that almost everyone, putting aside neo-nazis and holocaust-deniers, will agree were mostly not good. So it's very tempting to use them as a comparison for something else you're trying to show is not good.And I think in many cases what the person making the comparison is trying to do is not to say that X is exactly like the Nazis and exactly just as evil and terrible, but to show a parallel between the two, whether in their general philosophy or the likely outcome of their actions if taken too far or what have you.
This kind of feeling was behind at least some of the accusations of proto-fascism against Trump's administration, for example: No one, I imagine, seriously thought Trump, bad as he may have been, was another Hitler in the making but many, including myself, thought that some of his ideas and policies were not unrelated to or incapable of comparison with Nazi or fascist philosophy - the ultra-nationalism, for example, or the willingness to exploit popular resentment towards various targets, e.g. immigrants, intellectuals.
But yeah, no question it often pops up in an absurdly inappropriate manner.
Mod
Adjusting to the posters on the G is taking some time, the stream of consciousness members are back, though sadly no sign of Dandy, who while rambling was an engaging member of the Gblog before its demiseAs for the snooker loopy modding, are they getting touchy children to moderate now?
Berkley wrote: "No question (Godwin's law) often pops up in an absurdly inappropriate manner...Godwin himself is not always in favour of the interpretations or applications of his 'law':
In June 2018, Godwin wrote an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times denying the need to update or amend the rule, and rejected the idea that whoever invokes Godwin's Law has lost the argument, and argues that appropriate application of the rule "should function less as a conversation ender and more as a conversation starter."
WRT Trump, he asks in effect for historically accurate comparisons:
In December 2015, Godwin commented on the Nazi and fascist comparisons being made by several articles about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying: "If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump, or any other politician."[14] In August 2017, Godwin made similar remarks on social networking websites Facebook and Twitter with respect to the two previous days' Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, endorsing and encouraging comparisons of its alt-right organizers to Nazis. (both quotes from Wikipedia)
I think people should avoid absurd hyperbole in discussion - but populist politicians certainly use many of the same tactics in order to garner support, and it's legitimate to point out those similarities.
FWIW, I didn't post the law as a means of starting a serious discussion - I had never heard of it before, but it seems to immediately tell us a 'truth' about modern online discourse which is also absurd - the idea that discussions inevitably end in a 'Reductio ad Hitlerum' struck me as both valid and hilarious.
I tried to read out the Wikipedia passage to my wife, but found it difficult - I was in tears of laughter!
Gpfr wrote: "Day trip to Brussels tomorrow - my daughter is showing drawings in an exhibition with "the spotlight on women's work in culture, through media as diverse as photography, painting, drawing, textile ..."Nice - I hope it goes well. Have a glass of Chimay for me!
Berkley wrote: "I'm a little more sympathetic to the motivations behind "Godwinning", at least in some cases, than most people I've come across: I think it often happens because Hitler and the Nazis are one of the..."I have, in general, problems (to put it mildly) with many comparisons that are so easily drawn nowadays; irrespective of the subject. More often than not I find them exaggerating or downplaying, superficial, meaningless.
Look at what publishers and revievers come up with: "Dickensian", "Sebaldian"... What does that tell me? That the writer is too lazy or not capable to explain what they mean by that.
And the proliferation of stuff like "a cross between Laurence Sterne and David Foster Wallace", "a Nigerian Dostoyevsky", "the new Margaret Atwood", "Jayne Eyre set in Bulawao"....
All dogs are animals, but not all animals are dogs. All Nazis were fascists, but not all fascists were Nazis.
Faschism is an ideological concept (there is probably a better expression), the fundament on which Nazism was built. There is no "Nazi or fascist philosophy".
Therefore people should use the word fascist, not Nazi, when they talk about ideology imo.
I think it often happens because Hitler and the Nazis are one of the few things that almost everyone...will agree were mostly not good.
I couldn't agree more. But that wishy-washy "not good" is exactly the place where, as we in Germany might say, "der Hund begraben liegt" (the dog is buried). The crux
I believe (old-fashioned as that may be) that a word should have a meaning. That it is important that certain words do not lose their meaning.
"Love", for example, is a word that has lost all meaning. No difference between "I love Coca Cola" and "I love you".
If every rightwing thug were called a Nazi Hitler would be just another ordinary rightwing thug.
"Normalising" might be too strong a word. But it goes into the right, or rather wrong direction.
During one of the first demonstrations against the lock-down measures imposed by the German government a young woman climbed the podium. In a short, but passionate address to the audience she compared herself to Anne Franck.
"Normalising" the victims is just the other side of the coin. Should we accept that?
Sorry, not sure whether I managed to express myself in an intelligible way
Mod
" I hope it goes well. Have a glass of Chimay for me!..."
Thanks! 🍺
Further to my post #7 this week, being a little know all I emailed M L Longworth:I am currently reading this book, having really enjoyed the previous books in the series.However, I was surprised that you used doliprane as the weapon for an "instant" death. An overdose of doliprane or paracetamol, its usual name in the UK, does not kill instantly but very unpleasantly over a number of days.
I got this reply today:
Thank you. I got that information from a friend, a pharmacist here in France. I will double and triple check next time!
A pharmacist gave that advice. 😲
AB76 wrote: " Two Friends by Alberto Moravia (1951) was discovered in an old suitcase, after his deathIt is a collection of novellas concerned with the relationship between two young men. A naive intellectual..."
Thanks AB.
I've only read Agostino by Moravia, which I thought was excellent.
It has a film adaptation, which though it does vary from the book a bit, was still well done. It was 1962, but stopped short of condemning the old sea captain for what he really was. A mark of how brave the book was.
scarletnoir wrote: "Andy wrote: "Onto two that I would recommend without hesitation.. C'est la Vie by Pascal Garnier translated by Jane Aitken.
"I ..."
I can respect that of course SN.
I don't think I've met anyone who has the same sort of the very darkest black humour that I have..
This however, is lighter. But stick to your guns.. there's so many other great books..
Just finished a book that should have made the International Booker Longlist for sure.. Red Milk by Sjón translated by Victoria Cribb.
On a train stopped at Cheltenham Spa station in 1962, a young man is found dead in a railway carriage, wearing nothing but an overcoat and pyjamas from a London hospital. In his pocket is a wad of banknotes and a drawing of a swastika. He is 24 year old Gunnar Kampen from Iceland.
Its quite an opening to a tale told in reverse.
Anyone who has read Sjón before knows already there are two of his trademarks evident, the brevity of his work with so much crammed in, and his reference to Nazi resurgence in the 1950s and 60s. In this novel however, the latter becomes the subject of the piece, as he has discovered the perfect vehicle with which to do this, the young Icelander. This, he explains very well in his Afterword, which also clarifies where exactly he needed to embellish the otherwise true story.
Its a side of Iceland's dark past that we do not usually see, though with their blond Norse gods and epic folk tales it is easy to see the attraction to prospective Nazis. Indeed it was a meeting with the notorious American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell in Reykjavík that inflamed Gunnar's extremism.
Sjón's tale is a powerful one, and if the message is in anyway obscured, he summarises it in the Afterword..
..we must start with what we have in common with these people … we can at least show them for what they are, that we know they come from childhoods fundamentally similar to our own, that they had been nudged in a different direction by individuals and events at the beginning of their journeys, that they could so easily have become something else – that a Neo-Nazi is no more special than that.
Georg wrote: "I couldn't agree more. But that wishy-washy "not good" is exactly the place where, as we in Germany might say, "der Hund begraben liegt" (the dog is buried). The crux"I thought that might get a reaction but left it in anyway: it was meant to be an attempt at rhetorical understatement (technical term litotes or meiosis, according to wikipedia), but as I feared, it seems not to have worked the way I intended.
Berkley wrote: "Georg wrote: "I couldn't agree more. But that wishy-washy "not good" is exactly the place where, as we in Germany might say, "der Hund begraben liegt" (the dog is buried)."it was meant to be an attempt at rhetorical understatement"
It was pretty damn obvious this was a litote Berkley, I wouldn't worry about it...
Andy wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Two Friends by Alberto Moravia (1951) was discovered in an old suitcase, after his deathIt is a collection of novellas concerned with the relationship between two young men. A naive..."
I regard ol Alberto as a writer who always makes you think, Graham Greene is another, however short the novella or fragmentary the tale, you end up feeling mentally exercised)not exorcised..lol)
Moravia is very good on the pysche, the futlilty of life in some circumstances, while i wouldnt say he is existentialist, there is elements of that approach in all his novels.
Berkley wrote : but as I feared, it seems not to have worked the way I intendedNor did my reponse. As I also feared.
FWIW: I did not take that for your personal opinion, rather for a general observation. And I think I did take your general point. Which I generally would agree with. Unless I had indeed misunderstood it. Jees, it is not always easy to adequately express one's thoughts in a foreign language.
Georg wrote: "Berkley wrote : but as I feared, it seems not to have worked the way I intendedNor did my reponse. As I also feared.
FWIW: I did not take that for your personal opinion, rather for a general obs..."
No worries, I think we're more or less on the same page. As Scarletnoir said, I didn't mean to make a big discussion out of the subject, it was just an idle observation.
Andy wrote: "I don't think I've met anyone who has the same sort of the very darkest black humour that I have.."I have no problem with black humour - I like it a lot.
Sometimes, though, I simply don't see the joke - it's not even a case of not finding the 'joke' funny (as for Kate Atkinson - I 'see' the jokes there, but they just aren't funny - for me anyway).
If Garnier included jokes in 'The Panda Theory', he did a very good job of hiding them!
Maybe the one is too obvious (I can see it coming a mile off) and the other is too obscure (where was that joke? I must have missed it in the dark!)
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This morning I woke up humming the Ukrainian National Anthem - a tune I wouldn't have recognized until recently.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/ar...
Global worries have brought progress on my new digs to a near halt, but I'm still pecking away at it here and there. I've been keeping a running total for a friend - how many visitors ask "Have you read all these books?!". So far, seven. But a couple of variations: A few weeks ago, two guys showed up to install rug pad. I saw one of the guys staring at the book shelves, braced myself for the question. Instead, he turned around and asked "How does Vineland compare to Gravity's Rainbow? I had to say "Don't know, haven't read it"! Then a dear friend was visiting recently. Again, I watched him evaluate the shelves, waited for the question, thinking "Please, Larry, don't say it!" And he didn't. Instead he asked "Do you re-read these books?" Now, that's a good question!
So, how do you all respond when asked "Have you read all these..."?