Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello everyone.
Welcome to the new thread. I'm feeling a little daunted about living up to my predecessors - but here goes!
Let's start with fiction.
First of all we're glad to see Storm back:

...just finished Colm Toibin’s fictionalised biography of Thomas Mann, The Magician and I thought it was a stunning, magnificent piece of work... I’m off to read Buddenbrooks now…I may be some time…

Buddenbrooks (I’m guessing here) leads us to works in translation : Andy has, as usual, been reading widely, including Natural History by Joan Perucho translated from the Catalan by D.H. Rosenthal.

This is a fascinating read, as the blend of the surreal, the historical, the horror, and the downright weird, is completely unique.
Compelling also is the juxtaposition of a vampire being caught up in the Theory of Evolution - a sort of ‘un’natural history.. it’s such a great idea for a novel.

AB76 has read some sadly topical short stories

Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belarousets is a collection of short stories set in Ukraine over the last decade.
With the current war raging, it is a desperately sad read, although it predates the war by 4 years. Belarousets, a photographer, focuses on women and their lot in the troubled Ukraine post 2014. References to the Donbass are frequent, refugees in Kiev lament the prices and the oddness of the capital, far from their home regions.

Russell, SydneyH and AB76 are interested in Hugo von Hofmannsthal -difficult to find in translation - and Georg tells us about Ernst Weiss:

I cannot understand why he is all but forgotten, even in Germany. He might not quite have the calibre of (Kafka, Zweig, Roth and Werfel) , but, imo, he is a good and original writer in his own right.

Several of us are keen on crime novels.
Fuzzywuzz is reading Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series. I enjoy them, too.
MK warns us against Murder Before Evensong: by Ricard Coles:

overlong and plodding with too many religious asides for this irreligious person.

Giveusaclue and Fuzzywuzz have been reading Andrew Taylor's James Marwood series set in post Great Fire of London times.

Crossing from fiction to non-fiction, Andy read something that has elements of both:

Werner Herzog's The Twilight World translated from the German by Michael Hoffman. Hiroo Onoda is something of a legend these days, a lieutenant in the Imperial Army during World War II, stationed on the Philippine island of Lubang, he kept fighting long after the Allied victory, until he was finally relieved of his duties in 1974.

Herzog interviewed him but wrote his account of the meeting as fiction.

Robert has read The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel and suggests two good books about Christopher Marlowe: The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe by Charles Nicholl and The World of Christopher Marlowe by David Riggs for giveusaclue who gave up on Who Killed Kit Marlowe?: A Contract to Murder in Elizabethan England by M.J. Trow,

MK signals Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past - Omer Bartov. A mixture of history and personal memoir: the story of the diverse communities of Eastern Europe’s borderlands in the centuries prior to World War II.

Blurred lines between fact and fiction came up with reference to travel writing: scarletnoir and I liked Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia. In the introduction, Nicholas Shakespeare writes:

But what was he writing? The question would vex editors and critics ... Was it travel writing? Was it historical fiction? Was it reportage? And was it true - and, if not, did it matter? In advance of its American publication, Chatwin (requested) that In Patagonia be taken out of the travel category.

AB76 was disappointed in it.

I asked if anyone has read Patrick Leigh Fermor after hearing the latest Slightly Foxed podcast. Russell responded:

I thought the first two books were magic, and I don’t care if they evoke a world of privilege, passing from one castle to the next, nor if he embellished his story. I just loved the picture of a vanished mid-European culture, and the young adventurousness, and the lush atmospheric prose.

Just a reminder, don't forget we have the Films and Series thread.
Well, everyone, stay safe, stay as cool as you can for those who like me in Paris are suffering from the heat. At least it's a good opportunity/excuse to do lots of reading!

Thanks Gpfr, great introduction (with my name too 😀).

Checked half an hour ago and the temperature in the shade in the garden was 39.5 degrees. My thermometer only goes up to 40!

I have just started reading Bad Actors by Mick Herron and hoping it is as good as the previous ones.

Edited because I typed instruction instead of introduction!

Thanks GPFR!

In the Shires, my thermometer outdoors says 29c(in the shade) and indoors its 7c cooler than that upstairs and 10c cooler downstairs, so day one of the heat onslaught is going ok, i fear tomorrow may be worse!

I'm still enjoying Rugers micro-history of Heligoland, a small German island about 25kms off Cuxhaven. WW1 has started and the naval skirmishes are starting. British discussions to sieze the island are underway but come to nothing, while Balfour, at the Admirality,laments the ceding of the island to Germany in 1890.

Elsewhere, Dagerman's The Snake is a mix of heat and menace, Julian Green writes of his beloved Paris and Mohammed Berreda captures 1950s Cairo from Morroccan eyes

Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated
Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea
Paris
The Snake

Will read your intro later Gpfr... looks interesting! Just dropped in for now with this local news:

Wales has provisionally recorded its hottest day on record, with the temperature reaching 35.3C in Gogerddan, near Aberystwyth, the Met Office said.

Gogerddan is about 5 miles from where I am... we're not used to this! But fortunately it's dry heat... a long time ago, I spent a working summer holiday in Manhattan... it was very hot and humid, no air con where I stayed or worked, so two showers a day - first and last thing.

Edit: (1) That record only lasted a couple of hours! ...the mercury (hit) 37.1C in Hawarden, Flintshire.

(2) Gpfr - I have now read your excellent summary/introduction... it reminded me of one boiling hot Easter (!) when we lived in Paris in the 80s... we used to clear off in the summer.

scarletnoir wrote: "Will read your intro later Gpfr... looks interesting! Just dropped in for now with this local news:

Wales has provisionally recorded its hottest day on record, with the temperature reaching 35.3C ..."

i was in paris during the 2003 heatwave and then subsequently camping in the ardeche later that summer, it was so brutal. i had never stayed in a parisian apartment with high ceilings and big windows in such heat( i expected it to be a refuge, it wasnt), it was quite an experience. i looked foward to returning to blighty, only to walk straight into our mini-heatwave that year!

Outside now, it's 38°, down from the maximum 39. Inside it's 30. The lowest temperature tonight will be 26°, so it's not going to cool down much. 40° tomorrow, but a storm is forecast for tomorrow evening, so Wednesday should be OK. I think I'm going to spend much of the evening in a cool bath!
Scarlet, my nephew is a sheep farmer, a few miles inland from Tywyn, Gwynedd. He has some stock near Aberystwyth, too. With those temperatures, I hope he's finished shearing.

Thanks gpfr. I am reading John Grisham,Gray Mountain. It describes the way that big coal just destroys entire mountains for strip mining, what a despicable practice. It just destroys anything and every thing in its path.Then Just dumps it all into a valley below, the local enviroment is destroyed.Worse still is the coal washing which creates toxic slurry which is stored in large pits and they inevitably leech into the water table, tap water is unfit for any purpose at all let alone drinking. It is heartbreaking,it really is.

Gpfr wrote: "Outside now, it's 38°, down from the maximum 39. Inside it's 30. The lowest temperature tonight will be 26°, so it's not going to cool down much. 40° tomorrow, but a storm is forecast for tomorrow ..."

where exactly are you GPFR? east anglia? Sounds horrific , i would imagine tommorow may bring the 37c temps down my way!

AB76 wrote: "i was in paris during the 2003 heatwave ..."

I've just been looking up record temperatures here - in July 2019, there were temperatures of 42+. I think this is the record at the moment. Since they started keeping records in 1873, Paris had only once before passed 40°, in 1947. In 2003, it was a bit below 40.

Gpfr wrote: "...my nephew is a sheep farmer, a few miles inland from Tywyn, Gwynedd. He has some stock near Aberystwyth, too. With those temperatures, I hope he's finished shearing.

I hope so, too! I expect the sheep farmers have all done with that by now.
Summer heat is a bit more bearable usually by the coast, but there has only been a feeble breeze at best recently... still preferable to summer in the city, though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ofn...

Greenfairy wrote: ".I am reading John Grisham,Gray Mountain. It describes the way that big coal just destroys entire mountains for strip mining, what a despicable practice.

Indeed... the rather good TV series 'Justified' was set in the mining areas of Kentucky, and a good number of episodes dealt with coal mining and its aftermath - including the poverty which 'encouraged' quite a few locals to follow a path of criminality in order to survive and thrive. The series was based on the character Raylan Givens, who appears in three (or so) books by Elmore Leonard, with Raylan taking a different but parallel path as he becomes a lawman - a US Marshal - rather than a lawbreaker. His relationships with criminals he knew in his younger days form an important part of the backstory.

The title baffled me before I started watching, but it comes from the phrase 'justified homicide' - Raylan is a sort of modern day gunfighter, quick on the draw - who shoots down evildoers who try to kill him (or others). If that sounds a bit grim, there is actually a lot of humour - and even romance - in the series.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489428/...
I enjoyed it, anyway. It's nice to see the bad guys get their comeuppance, as happens too rarely nowadays (thinking here of political rather than actual deaths). But they do get a kicking once in a while.

Yes I had a binge watch on that series, I enjoyed it too.. I see that Wales is set to be even warmer tomorrow ?

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i was in paris during the 2003 heatwave ..."

I've just been looking up record temperatures here - in July 2019, there were temperatures of 42+. I think this is the record at the momen..."

ah of course, that explains it, i should have remembered your location..paris has had a lot of very warm days in last few years
Its climate can be like london in winter but in summer ive always felt its a much warmer city and london isnt exactly cool in summer either!

Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone.
Welcome to the new thread. I'm feeling a little daunted about living up to my predecessors - but here goes!
...."

Thank you, Gpfr! You're off to a great start!

Stay cool and safe, everyone. Just a reminder, we reached 116/F 55/C here in Portland last year!

Just watched the first episode of Murder in Provence. Oh dear!

In the books:

Verlaque was a bachelor, if I remember, the tragic drowning was in another book later in the series and wasn't related to him,

Verlaque was in his midish forties and Bonnet was approaching 40. The comments about menopause, and prostate were so over done, never in the books and out of place given what happens later in the series
(view spoiler)[ she is expecting (hide spoiler)]

She doesn't become attached to the criminal justice system, she goes part time to work on biography.

Paulik was a 6ft+ man who was a good friend of Verlaque's and Helene was his wife, a wine grower. Verlaque on tv was quite stroppy with her.

Apart from that................

Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A Nobel Prize winner so I feel any comment or criticism from me is irrelevant.
I absolutely loved most of this book, unexpectedly. I had the impression it was going to be dry and dusty but was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the sly indirect humour. What prisoners we are of our customs and beliefs and how they limit and warp our lives. Being a Buddenbrook brought so much pride and responsibility and the very effort to maintain the family name and prosperity was the root of the misfortunes.
A fascinating depiction of the Hanseatic merchant community in the second half of the 19th century, I was gripped by the first two thirds of the book. Mann ‘s style is heavy on (too much unnecessary?) detail and I began to drift by the end.

I am interested in thoughts on Very Long Novels. Does War and Peace need to be the length it is? I remember longueurs…but how dare I critique Tolstoy! Are authors of really long works being self indulgent? Could they do with a good editor? (JK Rowling got away with murder in her last overlong repetitious book because no editor is going to dare to tell her it was unnecessarily long). Do writers get carried away with the fun of their own creation? Depends on the book? Is my unease of vast tomes a reflection of the modern reader’s inability to focus for longer periods? Or a preference for spare, pared down writing?
A three pipe problem…..

Greenfairy wrote: "Yes I had a binge watch on that series, I enjoyed it too.. I see that Wales is set to be even warmer tomorrow ?"

Well, I hope not! The forecast yesterday was for 35C, and for today 30C. It was an uncomfortable night, though... when I got up an hour ago, the thermometer in the corridor read 23.5C, so I opened all the doors and windows (yes, including the front door as a temptation to any passing burglars - we don't get many around here, especially at 6am!). So, with the air still and the outside temp. feeling much the same as inside (I had to take the bins out, and anyway always pop into the garden in my PJs if it's dry) - the temp. is now 23.5C! No drop whatsoever. A sticky day in prospect.

Last night, we saw footage of the Royal Welsh show on TV - Llanelwedd is around 45 miles away - and the farmers were cooling their cows with fans, and putting sunblock on their pigs!

giveusaclue wrote: "Just watched the first episode of Murder in Provence. Oh dear!"

Nice to hear from someone who knows the books... I could not understand why the business about the ferry-jumper (Veralque's wife in the TV version) was included at all - it was as if the writer was determined to shoehorn in all sorts of stuff into the first episode, which didn't flow at all. Interesting to hear about the changes to the characters, too - age and even sex and height! This sometimes works - who can imagine TV's 'Morse' without Kevin Whately as his Geordie sidekick - but in the books Lewis is Welsh, and older. But I couldn't read the books so I don't care!

scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Just watched the first episode of Murder in Provence. Oh dear!"

Nice to hear from someone who knows the books... I could not understand why the business about the ferry-jumper ..."

I will probably watch the next one to play "spot the faults!"

Storm wrote: "Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A Nobel Prize winner so I feel any comment or criticism from me is irrelevant.
I absolutely loved most of this book, unexpectedly. I had the impression it was ...


I am interested in thoughts on Very Long Novels. Does War and Peace need to be the length it is? I remember longueurs…but how dare I critique Tolstoy! Are authors of really long works being self indulgent? Could they do with a good editor? (JK Rowling got away with murder in her last overlong repetitious book because no editor is going to dare to tell her it was unnecessarily long). Do writers get carried away with the fun of their own creation? Depends on the book? Is my unease of vast tomes a reflection of the modern reader’s inability to focus for longer periods? Or a preference for spare, pared down writing?
A three pipe problem…"

I hope to read Buddenbrooks some time within the next year or two but I'm trying first to read a few earlier German-language things that I've missed up to now in order to get a better feel for the cultural background and development.

On very long novels: last year I read what I think must be the longest one I've ever done: The Mysteries of London (the link is to only the first of two 1000+ pg volumes). This was popular fiction at its most popular - a record-setting best-seller in its day - and I found it enormously entertaining.

But the serialised format in which many of these ultra-long books first appeared perhaps makes them more similar to modern-day television shows than to novels. Dickens, Thackeray, etc in England; in France Dumas, Eugene Sue (his phenomenally successful Msyteries of Paris was the inspiration for the entire 19th-century "Mysteries of ____" trend) ... they had already found their audience before they were published in book form, which I imagine people bought then as we buy dvd sets today.

I can't remember if War and Peace was serialised or not, but the only part I recall finding a bit superfluous was the historical essay at the end, which arguably isn't actually part of the novel as such - it's more like a postscript, or whatever would correspond to an introduction when placed at the end.

I did read through Tolstoy's essay but this reminds me of another long novel, Hugo's Les Misérables, which contained a long chapter consisting of a bald description of the dreary routine of the nuns in a particular convent that. I found it close to unreadable and to say I skimmed through it would probably be understating the case.

But I think these are exceptional cases. If I'm involved in a book, if I feel engaged by the characters, the action, the story, I'm happy to spend more time with it, with them, with the whole thing - in spite of the bibliophile's everlasting urge to move on the the next book.

scarletnoir wrote: "Greenfairy wrote: "Yes I had a binge watch on that series, I enjoyed it too.. I see that Wales is set to be even warmer tomorrow ?"

Well, I hope not! The forecast yesterday was for 35C, and for to..."

warm here too, i slept ok, my house is cool but its 22c indoors at 0839, so i fear today may test out how cool the house remains!

Storm wrote: "Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A Nobel Prize winner so I feel any comment or criticism from me is irrelevant.
I absolutely loved most of this book, unexpectedly. I had the impression it was ..."

i have differing experiences of very long books, some 250 page novels have been slower to read than 600-700 page ones, while some longer novels just became very dreary and overdone.

i think the skill at writing shorter novels is something to be admired and must be a real skill.

i was gonna write more but the heat is so stupifying....lol

Storm wrote: "I am interested in thoughts on Very Long Novels. Does War and Peace need to be the length it is? ..."

Some good points made already - a number of 'books' that we now regard as single works were originally published in serial form (Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and - indeed - 'War and Peace'). I came across an interesting list here:
https://medium.com/@e.ardincaple/12-c....

As for whether such books are 'too long' - it depends entirely on how much we enjoy them. I read all the great Dostoyevsky novels at least twice, but 'War and Peace' is my only Tolstoy - I didn't much enjoy it, and especially not the way in which comment and philosophical thoughts were separated from the narrative (as I remember it)... FD handles this much better by clearly showing the way the characters' ideas affect their actions, and conversely how their physical state can affect their thoughts.

As for Dickens - an expert at the cliffhanger - I prefer his books as TV adaptations. I was amused this week to read a put-down of Dickens to the effect that 'the English think he writes novels for grown-ups', or something like that. Of course, I have forgotten who wrote or said it!

Edit: I have tracked down the quote, referred to by UnashamedPedant BTL following a piece by Julian Barnes:

In a book fairly well known in academic circles, The way of the world: the Bildungsroman in European culture, the Italian scholar Franco Moretti makes the slightly unfair, but not unfounded, satirical point that the English think that Dickens is literature for grown-ups.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

scarletnoir wrote: "Storm wrote: "I am interested in thoughts on Very Long Novels. Does War and Peace need to be the length it is? ..."
"As for whether such books are 'too long' - it depends entirely on how much we enjoy them...."

Storm, this is a good question. And scarlet, I quite agree.
Personally, although of course I can love a short book, a recent example being Cassandra at the Wedding, there's a special pleasure in a long book that I can sink into and enjoy for hours and hours ...

scarletnoir wrote: "Storm wrote: "I am interested in thoughts on Very Long Novels. Does War and Peace need to be the length it is? ..."

Some good points made already - a number of 'books' that we now regard as single..."

I feel the classic British monster novels are different beasts to the Russian ones.

With Dickens i find a feast of observational comedy, incredible character detail, set pieces and a through commentary on society, with say Dostoyevsky you get more philosophical discourse and discord, leaving things very much unresolved and still questioning on the major issues.

scarletnoir wrote: "Greenfairy wrote: "Yes I had a binge watch on that series, I enjoyed it too.. I see that Wales is set to be even warmer tomorrow ?"

Well, I hope not! The forecast yesterday was for 35C, and for to..."

giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Just watched the first episode of Murder in Provence. Oh dear!"

Nice to hear from someone who knows the books... I could not understand why the business abo..."

We have a pig farm a couple of miles away and they put sunblock on the pigs too, their skin is very similar to ours and pig skin sometimes makes a temporary skin graft fo severe burns. They are very cheerful creatures on the whole as well

Storm wrote: "Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A Nobel Prize winner so I feel any comment or criticism from me is irrelevant.
I absolutely loved most of this book, unexpectedly. I had the impression it was ..."

AB76 wrote: "Storm wrote: "Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A Nobel Prize winner so I feel any comment or criticism from me is irrelevant.
I absolutely loved most of this book, unexpectedly. I had the impr..."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...


Especially for Lisa (if it works).


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...

For AB i(if it works).

The Mirror and the Light is long but doesn't waste a word.
I re - read Les Miserables recently and wondered why the battle of Waterloo had to be described in quite such detail, also Mary Shelley's The Last Man seemed too drawn out, maybe long books was something of a 19th century fashion?
Dickens is a different case as his novels were serialised. I can only conclude that the authors went on and on sometimes simply because they wanted to.

Greenfairy wrote: "The Mirror and the Light is long but doesn't waste a word.
I re - read Les Miserables recently and wondered why the battle of Waterloo had to be described in quite such detail, also Mary Shelley's ..."

You have reminded me of why I gave up on Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom series. I didn't really need to be reading a 30 page description of a battle!

Storm wrote: "Finished Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A Nobel Prize winner so I feel any comment or criticism from me is irrelevant.
I absolutely loved most of this book, unexpectedly. I had the impression it was ..."

I think part of the phenomena is that many of us have been taught which authors and books 'should' be revered and so persevere with overly long or difficult books, because, as you say, certianly in Mann's case, he was a 'Nobel' prize winning author, so therefore I/we should be appreciating the book, and, if we are not, there must be something amiss about our own selves. I waded through 'The Magic Mountain' many years ago, I was young then, but it felt like a chore, but I also felt that I couldn't give myself permission to abandon it. I am much happier to give up on a book quite early on these days, if I am not enjoying it. Something that comes with much older age?

Ulysses was another one for me, tried to read it when young, at least three times. Never got beyond 50-60 pages. Eventually caught up with it, but the radio 4 drama version, done in episodes across a whole weekend, a year or so back, which was sort of interesting but I didn't rate it that highly though, so it remains a mystery to me, as to why it is considered the best book of the 20th century. Still confounds me how someone could love to eat kidneys smelling of urine for breakfast though!...

Though I do agree with the comment about editors, these days, allowing successful authors to over indulge themselves. I forget who said it but I do appreciate the literary person who wrote to a friend, "forgive the long length of the letter, but I did not have enough time to write a short one"!...

giveusaclue wrote: "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...


Especially for Lisa (if it works).
..."

I love it, 'clue, and consider it a very special gift, coming from you!

Greenfairy wrote: "The Mirror and the Light is long but doesn't waste a word ..."

Totally agree – very long but I wouldn’t have missed one word of it.

There are very long books and then there are very, very long books. A few years ago I got through the unabridged million words of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady. It was slow, ponderous, sermonizing, and terrific. I finished it thinking it was without question the greatest novel of the 18th century.

I was led to it by all the admiring mentions that are made of Clarissa herself in French 19th century novels, particularly Balzac. They were reading it in an abbreviated translation. Even abbreviated I doubt it is read much today by anyone outside an English department.

Just at the moment I’m reading Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian, which at 550 small-print pages counts as quite long, and I’m thinking that interesting as it is he does take a long time to make anything happen. Yet it was immensely popular, so perhaps the long novels of the 19th century, serialized or not, were what the reading public welcomed. No TV, no radio, no daily newspapers till later on, no internet. Long novels could be relied on to enliven the day.

Tam – I had the same feeling about The Magic Mountain. Dr Faustus wasn’t a lot better. So it was decades before I could persuade myself to start Buddenbrooks, and what a delightful surprise it was.

Dostoyevsky reportedly saw himself as a Dickensian novelist - an idea that threw me for a loop when I first heard it and had me shaking my head at Dostoyevsky's unique way of looking at things; but later on struck me as an important insight into Dickens.

Great responses to Very Long Books. Thank you.
I seem to be on a retro kick just now and have acquired a copy of Clarissa but I have to decided to read it over the next year, small chunks at a time.
I got four books (£4!) from a local charity bookshop today, including Martin Chuzzlewit (can’t remember ever having read it) so another chunkster, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I am not in the mood for the latest “buzz” novel “everyone is talking about”.
One of the reasons, I think, is, among other prompts, the latest events in the US re banning abortion, plus other ominous signs of the hard fought freedoms women have achieved being eroded. So I am looking back at where we have come from, and reflecting on what used to be taken for granted, and just how much has changed….or not.
Another question. Some Booktubers have been discussing whether Audio books count as Reading? Personally, I think no, Listening is not Reading. It is simply a different experience. An alternative enjoyment. I have just finished listening to The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. So another deep immersion in a time when women’s lives were circumscribed and dependent on menfolk. OK, the story is saccharine but the depiction of the psychology of the characters shows deep understanding, wit, and empathy. It is hardly revelatory to say that we reap what we sow! And that how we treat others rebounds on us but she shows this so well.

Yes, I suppose a daily reading of a very long novel in the 18th or 19th centuries was something akin to us watching a series or soap opera.

I am feeling for all who are experiencing this heat wave. Ugh! The fact that it is green and cool in the PNW were the main reasons I moved here when I finally was able to.

And being preverse, I'm thinking of the wet fall here several years ago when a wind storm hit and wires came tumbling down all over the area. I didn't have electricity (and therefore no heat) for 4 days. I ended up under the covers with all the blankets I had piled on until I couldn't stand it any longer and went hunting for a motel room so I could warm up. Of course I wasn't the only one and was lucky to find a room. That was the last day before the electricity and heat came back on.

2. (On the IPad I can’t see more than a small section of what I am typing)
So in The Enchanted April, we have to affront class. It isn’t viewed as starkly or unapologetically today but I believe it is still there, alive and kicking. Lady Caroline shows the understanding that reflects her “blue blood” (despite the fact that one of the middle class characters has consistently demonstrated the same empathy). I could not help but think of our UK Parliament and antiquated House of Lords and think oh dearie me some people seem to think they are still living in this time.
Which brings me to a book I read a couple of weeks ago. Sad Little Men by Richard Beard. He was a product of the English private school system, contemporaneous with Johnson and Cameron, and he is a very very angry man. He considers such schools a blight on England and the subtitle is Public Schools and the Ruin of England. He details the psychology of arrested development of the products of such education, and delivers a polemic against the prevailing beliefs that they were still educating for the Empire. When the map was largely pink. And those boys are educated to feel entitled. He remarks astutely how so many of them retain the looks of hardly grown boys. Need I labour the point here?
I felt for Beard as he rails at how this unnatural form of education twists and warps the males it sends out into the world. To rule over the rest of us.

Lljones wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...


Especially for ..."

You're welcome!

Greenfairy wrote: "Yes, I suppose a daily reading of a very long novel in the 18th or 19th centuries was something akin to us watching a series or soap opera."

Most modern editions will give some indication of where the individual instalments begin and end - I know the Oxford paperbacks are good for this, for example. I've sometimes toyed with the idea of reading one of those serialised novels as if I were seeing those instalments come out once a week - IOW, reading one instalment per week and taking a year or 18 months to finish it, as the case may be. And of course this would free up time to read other things over the same period.

But I always get on a roll and feel too impatient to stick to the plan - much as we binge-watch our dvd sets today.

And another one especially for Lisa:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...

is this Mario?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/d...

AB76 wrote: " I feel the classic British monster novels are different beasts to the Russian ones."

I agree with the points you made - as a young man, I was especially interested in authors who considered philosophical issues, which is an area too little explored by English language authors, it seems to me... I did like Graham Greene, though. Apart from Greene, I tended to prefer the Russians and the French (Camus and Sartre).

Tam wrote: "Ulysses was another one for me, tried to read it when young, at least three times. Never got beyond 50-60 pages."

I tried and failed twice, getting as far as p100 or so - that seems like giving it a good go. It is apparently necessary to have a Boris Johnson-like classical education to understand it (though I doubt Bojo could provide much illumination) - but a lot of it read like some incomprehensible word salad, so maybe they did have something in common!

It's not even as if I dislike all Joyce - I enjoyed 'Dubliners' and 'Portrait of the Artist' - but in those books, I understood what he was on about. Life's too short to plough through books we don't enjoy - regardless of length!

Berkley wrote: "Dostoyevsky reportedly saw himself as a Dickensian novelist - an idea that threw me for a loop when I first heard it and had me shaking my head at Dostoyevsky's unique way of looking at things; but..."

It baffles me - I wonder how he meant that comment? Dickens was inventive, for sure, but there's no philosophical anguish that I can think of, as opposed to misery of the badly treated characters.

Storm wrote: "Some Booktubers have been discussing whether Audio books count as Reading? Personally, I think no, Listening is not Reading.

I must ask my mother about this - she's 100, used to read a lot, is now almost blind - and so 'reads' audiobooks. I'll be interested to hear her reaction. How do you classify 'reading' by those whose eyesight has failed?

Storm wrote: "(Beard) details the psychology of arrested development of the products of (private) education, and delivers a polemic against the prevailing beliefs that they were still educating for the Empire. When the map was largely pink. And those boys are educated to feel entitled. "

Oh, he's not wrong... 20 PMs attended Eton, and 42 went to Oxford or Cambridge - only 13 to other unis and less still (8) did not attend uni at all. Of the Eton alumni, is it necessary to point out the damage done to the UK by Johnson and Cameron? The next will probably be Sunak (Winchester and Oxford).

scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "Ulysses was another one for me, tried to read it when young, at least three times. Never got beyond 50-60 pages."

"I tried and failed twice, getting as far as p100 or so - that seems li..."

Of course I agree that one certainly shouldn't plough on with books one doesn't enjoy, but I'm always a little puzzled by this idea of Ulysses as a difficult read. When The G did Where to start with James Joyce, those who think reading Ulysses is worthwhile were split between those who think you need detailed notes to follow it and those who think one should go with the flow. I belong to the second group - I read no guide, no notes and didn't find it hard going. Admittedly I read it when I was a student (not as part of the course - the only 20th century works came in a special module on "committed literature in the 30s") so maybe I had the right mindset to enjoy it at that point.

scarletnoir wrote: "Storm wrote: "Some Booktubers have been discussing whether Audio books count as Reading? Personally, I think no, Listening is not Reading.

I must ask my mother about this - she's 100, used to read..."

My sister was blind from her thirties. Like all the family she was a voracious reader. At first she read books in braille but in the last years of her life, she couldn't manage it, so went over completely to audio books. And still talked about what she was "reading".

Audio books, reading or not? Braille I would say is definitely reading, done with fingers rather than eyes. Maybe I am wrong to say it isn’t reading. Done with ears rather than eyes then? Active listening? Certainly, it feels like a very immersive, attentive experience because it can’t be hurried, unlike reading where we can skim a lot, zip through sections desperate to know what happens next.
I do like the way listening allows me to several things at the same time, however.

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: " I feel the classic British monster novels are different beasts to the Russian ones."

I agree with the points you made - as a young man, I was especially interested in authors who con..."

Greene is a good example, a british author who matches the continental style of philosophical literature.