Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello everyone.

Well, the weather’s becoming a bit more autumnal. All the better for settling down with a good book!
Tam gave us better news of Dave and I'm sure everyone joins me in hoping he's continuing to recover.

Lately, several people have been reading French books.

Andy’s been reading Simenon, Maigret and the Ghost:

There's lots to admire here, but an outstandingly unlikely plot about art fraud is the least of these. The stars, as ever, are the Inspector himself, and the setting, the vibrant dancehalls and crime corridors of 1950s Paris.

Berkley has the collected works:

so far I would say the standouts for me have been Maigret et la jeune morte and Maigret Chez Le Ministre, both from 1954, but they've all been highly enjoyable.

I’ve read very little Simenon and I think no Maigret at all. Maybe I should borrow some from the library.

AB76 says

The Conspiracy by Paul Nizan(1938), is unfolding as a brilliant study of French youth and politics in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Russell read 16 - Le rêve - Émile Zola - Collection Les Rougon-Macquart: Texte intégral – Emile Zola.

Zola shows that while his forte is robust realism he is just as adept at creating a story at the other end of the spectrum. This dream-world tale of faith, hope, charity and obedience is plausible on its own terms. I appreciated the beautiful descriptions of lives spent with ecclesiastical embroidery, and of two young persons exalted by love.

FrustratedArtist asks

Are there any fans of Victor Hugo - specifically his novels - here? I'm reading my 4th Hugo novel, The Man Who Laughs, and it's got the strange mixture of baroque imagination and detailed historical (or in this case pseudo-historical) and philosophical asides as his other novels.

FrustratedArtist is reading in French and listening at the same time and asks

Does anyone else enjoy listening along while / before/ after reading?

Berkley replied

I've done it only once, with George Sand's François le Champi, partly because I'd read somewhere that Proust reminisced about having it read to him as a child by his mother, so I thought it would be an interesting experience to try it that way.

Not French but set in France 😉: MK has been

listening to To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker, downloaded from the library ... This is one of the better Bruno books, although there is always food. But I had no idea of the language connections which range from southern France into Spain, nor that the language, Occitan, was once suppressed by the French central government.

NellyBells and MK enjoy listening to audiobooks. CCCubbon has told us she doesn’t, they send her to sleep. FrustratedArtist does it to help with the language. Anyone else?

Scarletnoir has been reading Mick Herron’s Slough House series: "easy reads and very suitable for when you are tired or stressed!" And more seriously is continuing with Juan Marsé, now on Lizard Tails.

I'm not quite sure whether they qualify as 'autofiction', but they do clearly include a good deal of autobiographical detail, often referring to his mother's postpartum death and his adoption. … For me, Marsé's style is fascinating and involving - it's quite addictive.

Giveusaclue has read The Order by Daniel Silva the latest in the Gabriel Allon series about an Israeli secret agent/restorer of old masters:

enjoyable if a little confused in the writing as long as you don't take it too seriously.

CCCubbon has been asking us some good quiz questions, one of which may have prompted Bill to make a change:

For the first time in over a year, I’ve been enjoying a work of classic literature, Shakespeare Apocrypha (as opposed to the books on music, nonfiction, comic books, and occasional popular fiction which has made up my diet for the past year).

And finally, a post near the end which people may well not have seen: Storm wondered if

anyone has read Janice Pariat’s Everything the Light Touches? I am a bit more than halfway through but the book is puzzling me. ...The characters are different in time, space and personality, but botany, the study and significance of plants is the connecting thread.

.

Thanks for that intro GPFR(just moved this into the new thread)

Latin America, especially the Southern Cone has had a consistent presence in my reading in 2022, all the returns have been positive and its taught me so many new things about Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil
The books were preceded by Soda Stereo's 1988 album "Doble Vida"(Argentinian rock classic), the ones i have read are

Voyage of the Beagle*Darwin)- almost all this is about1830s latin america with fascinating encounters in Argentina-Uruguay and Brazil

People In the Room(Lange)- a haunting 1950s novel by one of the first Argentinian female writers of note

Fever Dream(Schweblin)- a truly disturbing tale of environmental pollution and maternal angst, a modern female argentinian novel

The Rooftop(Trias)- a third female novelist, this time from Uruguay(thanks Andy for recommendation)

The People and The Power (Arraes)- picked up in Oxfam, a political study of mid 20th c Brazil by an exiled politician

The Truce (Benedetti)- a novel of Montevideo and retirement, superb

Uruguay: Portrait of a Democracy(FitzGibbon)- brilliant mid 1950s study of Uruguay

Story of a Death Foretold - the tale of Allende and the coup that destroyed democratic Chile

Vargas and Brazil (Essays)

I don't know how many of you are active on Twitter, but the past week or so on that site has had me thinking a lot about The Foundation Trilogy. The disruptions caused by Elon Musk's takeover are very reminiscent of those caused by The Mule in Asimov's second volume. This has sent a lot of users (including me) in search of the Second Foundation - a consensus seems to have been rather rapidly forming that a possible refuge is the social media site Mastodon.

Mastodon is a series of linked servers, each of which is maintained and moderated by different sets of individuals. Other than the possible moderation differences, I'm not sure what difference the choice of servers makes, as I've been following (and been followed back by) people from a variety of servers with no readily apparent differences.

At any rate, if anyone would else like to join Mastodon, here's an invitation link to my server, zirk.us, which is described as

Literature, philosophy, film, music, culture, politics, history, architecture – come and join the circus of the arts and humanities! A place for readers, writers, thinkers, artists, academics, enthusiasts or anyone who just wants to follow the conversation.

https://zirk.us/invite/uqgd845k
(I think you will automatically be following my account (@BillFromPA@zirk.us) if you register through this link.)

Bill wrote: "I don't know how many of you are active on Twitter, but the past week or so on that site has had me thinking a lot about The Foundation Trilogy. The disruptions caused by Elon Musk'..."

Musk seems, in my opinion, to enjoying the chaos and disruption of a vital political social media channel, just before the mid term elections. Its so careless and cavalier its almost criminal, i have no social media presence but am concerned how a maverick with far too much money has been able to fiddle and tamper with a platform like twitter

there is a method in Musks madness and it is disruption....

AB76 wrote: "Bill wrote: "I don't know how many of you are active on Twitter, but the past week or so on that site has had me thinking a lot about The Foundation Trilogy. The disruptions caused ..."

Well, it make a change from the Russians. She says with tongue firmly in cheek!

Thanks to Bill for providing that invitation link. I've never done Twitter and thus have never really understood what it was all about but I've heard of Mastodon elsewhere and have been thinking about giving it a try.

Perhaps I should put this in the Music section but there is a literary angle as well: I've been reading some early German short stories lately - e.g. Hoffmann, Tieck, etc - and one of the standouts was La Motte Fouqué's Undine. This story was made the basis of an opera by Hoffmann, with libretto by La Motte Fouqué himself.

The opera is available on youtube and I've been listening to it the last few weeks. I'd assumed I'd be able to find online copies of the libretto in both the original German and an English translation but all I've found so far is the German - which wouldn't have been so bad, since I could have used Deepl or something to translate the parts I was most interested in, but they're all in archived book-form and in Gothic script, which I find difficult to read.

Anyway, my favourites among those German stories so far have been:

The Golden Flower Pot - E.T.A. Hoffmann
The Sand-Man - E.T.A. Hoffmann
These were both re-reads for me, though in different translations this time around. The Sand-Man is quite famous and was written about by Freud in his essay On the Uncanny, and it's easy to see why it exerted such a hold on his interest once you read it. Very dark and enigmatic The Golden Flower Pot (simply The Golden Pot in other versions) more exuberant but not necessarily more obvious in the ultimate meaning of its symbolism, which in both stories is not meant to be reducible to simple allegory in any case. There are certain aspects that seem relatively straightforward, but I think the deeper meaning is not meant to be easily put into words, but to work on the reader's own subconscious and create its effect in this way.

Undine - Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué
I think this is one of the most successful efforts towards literary fairy tale ever done, in its evocation of a world that contains forces and entities beyond the world of everyday human experience and the kind of thing that can happen when human actors get too close and interact directly with them. Deeply moving, as is, in a different way...

... Peter Schlemiel - Adelbert von Chamisso
Simple but extremely effective morality story about the man who famously lost (or traded away) his shadow. So skillfully handled by Chamisso, who effortlessly pulls the reader this way and that with humour and pathos.

I'm still only a little more than half way through the Hoffmann collection, so more to come from that one.

I like a good laugh, and I know many of you feel the same way... so instead of a book, I'd like to recommend a reviewer on GR - Paul Bryant - whose pieces are often hilarious as well as perceptive.

Here's the start of one which isn't about a single book, but book titles in general:

Of Mice and Men

The title of this novel is only 50% accurate, a very poor effort. Yes, it’s about men, but there’s little or nothing about mice in these pages. Mice enthusiasts will come away disappointed. This got me thinking about other novel titles. You would have to say that such books as The Slap, The Help, The Great Gatsby, Gangsta Granny, Mrs Dalloway and Hamlet have very good titles because they are all about a slap, some help, a Gatsby who was really great, a no good granny, a woman who was married to a guy called Dalloway and a Hamlet. I have no problem with those titles. But you may be poring over the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird for a long fruitless evening to find any mockingbirds coming to any harm at all. Indeed, to coin a phrase, no mockingbirds were harmed during the making of that book. So I rate that title only 5% accurate....

If you want to read the rest, it's here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...

Nice intro as always, Gpfr - and I seemed to have missed some of those comments, so very useful!

Finished 'Lizard Tails' and 'Slough House' - both up to their authors' usual standards - and am now on the fifth John Russell/Berlin books, Lehrter Station by David Downing.

Berkley wrote: "Peter Schlemiel - Adelbert von Chamisso."

I expect you know the definition of the word 'schlemiel' - "an unlucky clumsy person : CHUMP" (from the Yiddish)? I know no Yiddish, but somehow that word stuck in my memory!

scarletnoir wrote: "the fifth John Russell/Berlin books, Lehrter Station by David Downing..."

I've just read the first, Zoo Station, which I'd had for quite a long while. Your liking for the series encouraged me to get to it and I agree with you — I'll continue with them.

Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "the fifth John Russell/Berlin books, Lehrter Station by David Downing..."

I've just read the first, Zoo Station, which I'd had for quite a long while. Your liking ..."

Good - I'm glad you liked it. Downing seems less well known than others who have ploughed a similar furrow - but the research seems very thorough, and the different recurring characters allow for a wide range of perspectives on (in particular) Berlin from the mid-30s onwards.

By comparison - there is less humour than in Philip Kerr's excellent Bernie Gunther series, but I like Downing more than the better known Alan Furst, though to be fair I have only read one of his - it was OK but not outstanding. Maybe some of his others are better.

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "the fifth John Russell/Berlin books, Lehrter Station by David Downing..."

I've just read the first, Zoo Station, which I'd had for quite a long while...."

Bernie seems more cynical to me, but then he gets more up close and personal with some real nasties.

I was sorry when I finished David Downing's series, I could have kept on going but then there would have to have been more war.

My favorite Alan Furst book is

Have I mentioned here. It's set around Berlin just as the wall comes down. We have Stasies! I liked enough that I'm thinking of checking out some of his - Dan Fesperman earlier books.

Time for another question to think about.

The Lion and the Unicorn is the heraldic symbol for the United Kingdom but which historical event is it depicting? Date?

Unicorn horns were once believed to have magical properties particularly the ability to neutralise poisons. Queen Elizabeth l was given one studded with precious stones that is said to have been worth £10,000 the equivalent price of a castle at that time.
Which animal do these horns really come from? How is the horn formed?
The animal has a name derived from the Old Norse word for corpse. Can you think of any reason it should have such a name?

Here's some Mastodon info - https://www.seattletimes.com/business...

CCCubbon wrote: "Time for another question to think about.

The Lion and the Unicorn is the heraldic symbol for the United Kingdom but which historical event is it depicting? Date?

Unicorn horns were once believed..."

Haven't got a clue about the first part of the question.
But I know the animal with the unicorn (not four-legged), the horn looks like an elongated spiral. No idea why it was given the Norse name for a corpse though.

I really enjoy your little quizzes and will take myself off to DuckDuckGo now to investigate....

CCCubbon wrote: "Time for another question to think about.

The Lion and the Unicorn is the heraldic symbol for the United Kingdom but which historical event is it depicting? Date?

Unicorn horns were once believed..."

I thought they came from Narwhals. In the past some folks thought that if you dropped in emerald into wine and drank the wine (not the emerald) it would save you from poison. Good luck with that one.

CCCubbon wrote: "Time for another question to think about.

The Lion and the Unicorn is the heraldic symbol for the United Kingdom but which historical event is it depicting? Date?

Unicorn horns were once believed..."

Here are two pics from the Musée de Cluny (museum of the middle ages) in Paris. a narwhals horn, and a tapestry of the lion and the unicorn, which were both on display in the same room.. if that helps at all?https://i.postimg.cc/gkQJ3wG7/IMG-145... andhttps://i.postimg.cc/pLvdswnQ/IMG-144.... I read in the LRB recently that the Museum has now reopened after a long refurbishment. I would happily go back and have a look around it again, she said, hoping for better days, for everyone...

CCCubbon wrote: "Time for another question to think about.

The Lion and the Unicorn is the heraldic symbol for the United Kingdom but which historical event is it depicting? Date?

Unicorn horns were once believed..."

In The King of Elfland's Daughter Lord Dunsany gives an entertaining account of the origin of one unicorn horn that has survived in collections to the present day, but some readers may be skeptical as to whether his account is entirely factual ...

Paul Nizans 1938 novel The Conspiracy is so good thus far, it could be a late contender for novel of 2022.

Published by Verso with an intro by Sartre(listed as "new" by the publisher, rather oddly, as he is very much dead, newly found maybe would sound better), with an afterword by Walter Benjamin(on unpublished essay), its a fabulous read.

The blurb is poor, the book resembles nothing at all what i expected, rather than a densely plotted tale of young revolutionaries, a sort of homage to Dostoyevsky, its a rather floating and fascinating document of the late 1920s. Politics, society, prejudice and pleasure all mix, in what is the best kind of writing.

Paris is the main setting but there is time in the Normandy countryside and historical references abound. As a committed Marxist and communist(until he left the party over the Nazi-Soviet pact), Nizan weaves some subtle commentary on where France was heading in the 1920s. The spectres of the catholic conservative right and extreme right loom, alongside the secular, leftist groups....

The fate of the author is quite sad, like so many committed Communists in the late 30s as the war in Spain raged, the USSR was a beacon for him and then the Hitler pact with Stalin, leaving him aghast and bitter, before death on the Dunkirk perimeter fighting with the French army, as the Germans fought to break through./..

MK wrote: "I was sorry when I finished David Downing's series, I could have kept on going but then there would have to have been more war."

Indeed - though WW2 is already over by book 5 - we are into the cold war now!

Thanks for the Furst and Festerman suggestions. I've added them to a long list of books to be checked out!

Tam wrote: "Here are two pics from the Musée de Cluny (museum of the middle ages) in Paris. a narwhals horn, and a tapestry of the lion and the unicorn..."

Thanks - in 4 years living in Paris, we never visited that museum - an oversight, clearly. You seem to have a liking for tapestries - have you seen the brilliant Apocalypse tapestry at the Château d'Angers? It's definitely worth seeing for anyone visiting the area:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocaly...

I can make a personal link between the narwhal and the tapestry - our younger daughter spent 9 months in Angers as part of her French uni course, and we viewed the tapestry together during a visit. Coincidentally, when she was in primary school the pupils were asked to write a report on an animal of their choice. She was stuck for inspiration and so I suggested the narwhal (I have a taste for the bizarre.)

When she presented this to the class, many of the kids refused to believe that it existed!

Hans Fallada and his brilliant account of the early Nazi years in A Stranger In My Own Country, makes me think more about the Nazi vote in 1933 and what it meant for Germany.

Hitler won 44% of the vote in 1933 which is similar to the % the Tories have been elected on. Clearly in the far west Rhineland, sections of Bavaria and urban Berlin, he had no overall majority and even in other states it was 51% at best. It beggars the question what the other 49% did between 1933 and 1939(when total war ruled out the dissenting voices as it can sometimes do).

Some may reason that the right wing parties who did deals with Hitler would have had nazi's among their voters, but that doesnt work as a rule.

Fallada lived in the tiny SW Mecklenberg village of Carwitz in late 1933(population 33), he describes it at that time as mostly rural, farming people, poor soil and hard times, without any real Nazi presence, the landkreis it is in voted 51% Nazi in 1933 but that includes far bigger towns and areas, than the lakeside village. (of course within a few years, the Nazi presence did become noticeable)

AB76 wrote: "Paul Nizans 1938 novel The Conspiracy is so good thus far, it could be a late contender for novel of 2022.

Published by Verso with an intro by Sartre(listed as "new" by the publisher, rather oddl..."

Sounds interesting... perhaps Sartre's intro was newly translated? I wonder to what extent this covers similar ground to Sartre's own The Age of Reason which was set in 1938.

I've just finished . This was the book of choice for the second outing of a local face-to face bookclub meeting on 20th November.

Small Things Like These is the shortest book I've read since being an adult, but despite its brevity manages to accomplish many things - the minutiae (and drudgery) of everyday life, the susurrus of lurking gossip and the pondering of an adult male in small-town Ireland in the 1980's. This is a work of fiction, but...

The existence of the Magdalen Laundries is a darkness in very recent Irish history. What this story captures is the very essence of why these institutions became entrenched into society - fear, shame and the overarching nature of the Catholic Church.

The story starts with an excerpt from The Proclamation of the Irish Republic, in 1916 which encompasses equal opportunities and 'cherishing all of the children of the nation equally'. The creation of the Magdalen Laundries was anything but.

These laundries (the last closed in 1996) epitomised the merger of state and a religious organisation and this idealogy was firmly entrenched into Irish Society. This was reflected in this story in that people had their suspicions about what 'went on' in these laundries but were themselves fearful that 'it could be them'.

Bill Furlong, the central character was portrayed fabulously, a gentle soul whose own backstory was pivotal to how this story progressed.

A wonderful, if harrowing read.

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Paul Nizans 1938 novel The Conspiracy is so good thus far, it could be a late contender for novel of 2022.

Published by Verso with an intro by Sartre(listed as "new" by the publisher,..."

so far its markedly different to AOR as while written in the late 30s, it is set in the late 20s. Stylistically very different too, one of those novels that says so much and makes you think but in a leaner pared back style than Sartre.(I generally find Sartre very readable but he is more verbose than Nizan)

AB76 wrote: It beggars the question what the other 49% did between 1933 and 1939(when total war ruled out the dissenting voices as it can sometimes do).

Well, the question about the dissenting voices can easily be answered: after the Enabling Act, passed in March 33, Germany ceased to be a democracy and became a dictatorship. Where you could only vote for one party, because there was only one party.

scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "Here are two pics from the Musée de Cluny (museum of the middle ages) in Paris. a narwhals horn, and a tapestry of the lion and the unicorn..."

Thanks - in 4 years living in Paris, we never visited that museum..."

I'm going there on Saturday. I've been several times before, but not since the renovation. And of course, there are also the thermes, Roman baths, which you must have seen, scarletnoir?

Time for a chuckle? https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...

Great pictures Tam, that tusk is fantastic.

The Lion and the Unicorn symbol represents the joining of England ( the lion) and Scotland ( the Unicorn) when James ascended the throne in 1603

Yes, of course, the narwhal has this long tusk which is a sort of elongated canine tooth growing out from the lip twisting counter clockwise for up to 2.5 metres.
I read that the Old Norse name for ‘corpse’ was given because the narwhal is particularly smooth, with no ears or eyelashes nor any protruding sexual organs. It can dive down to a mile deep twisting round as it goes and sailors gave the corpse name because they thought that it resembled a sinking body.

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: It beggars the question what the other 49% did between 1933 and 1939(when total war ruled out the dissenting voices as it can sometimes do).

Well, the question about the dissenting voi..."

i guess i was meaning personal opinions and beliefs, how quickly that became eroded. Fallada found in Carwitz a poor rural village with very low nazi sympathies in 1933, which is interesting but he sort of answers my question with his own take on the "internalisation" of thought and beliefs in the Nazi years, i suspect this was the same process with the majority of non-nazi;s through to 1945....keeping their heads down

sad to see that Rixdorf Editions has folded, a small press dealing in some rare german texts from the Wilhlemine-Weimar period in translation

here is the farewell blog:

https://www.rixdorfeditions.com/blog/...

always sad to see independent small presses stop publishing...

CCCubbon wrote: "Great pictures Tam, that tusk is fantastic.

The Lion and the Unicorn symbol represents the joining of England ( the lion) and Scotland ( the Unicorn) when James ascended the throne in 1603

Yes, o..."
I'm still a bit puzzled as this was a French tapestry. There must have been a further back story to it, than just commemorating the union of Scotland and England. Another rabbit hole to jump down. Perhaps Gpfr could enlighten us after her visit to The Cluny on Saturday, if they give a history of the tapestry that is.

We went to a new hospital today, Bedford, which is more specialist in stroke treatment and it seems that we were told the wrong results by the woman who did the CT scan, at least I think it was the CT one, I'm rather losing track. Anyway Dave's carotid artery is 70 % blocked, so they want to do the operation to clear it as soon as possible. This consultant was very scathing about the amount of time that MK hospital has taken to do the scans, and says that NHS policy, across the country, is that this operation should be done within two weeks of the stroke. We are already well over that... So he has another scan on Saturday, and then perhaps, very soon after that, the op, which is two days in hospital...

@ Tam

Good news that something is being done but I can imagine how frustrating all the delay is for you and Dave.
Seems that the NHS is in a muddle at some hospitals - I have endless difficulties - won’t bore you with them. Finally back on my monthly injections from next week as sight deteriorating again.
Keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well for you and Dave.

Interesting re that tapestry. Let me know if you find out.

@Tam

Think these six tapestries are the ones, evidently six of them representing the senses.
The United Kingdom symbol designer maybe knew about them - they date from the end of the 15C.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lad...

Re La Dame à la licorne — the lion and the unicorn:

The unicorn and the lion are omnipresent in this series. The unicorn represents the mythical side and the lion is an emblem of nobility. The standards carried by these animals represent the coats of arms of the Le Viste family, a family of lawyers established in Lyon and likely to have commissioned the tapestry.

and this from Brown University Library:

Across cultures and time periods, the unicorn has appeared with a lion. The pairing represents opposing counterparts. The two beasts are, at times, fierce adversaries, but in essence, they symbolize complements — the extrovert and introvert, the violent and tranquil. In Middle Eastern myths, interactions between the lion and the unicorn explained the cycles of day and night and the moon phases. With each passage from the lion’s realm, day, to the unicorn’s, night, the unicorn’s horn, or crescent of the moon, becomes ever sharper, eventually disappearing. This association of the two animals as balanced natural forces has persisted through the ages.

The unicorn and its compliment have regularly been used in heraldic emblems, or symbolic representations of nations, families, and important ranks, since the 16th century. In 1603, James VI, King of Scotland, united the crowns of Scotland and England when he acceded to the English throne as James I, the anointed successor to Elizabeth I. This joining of the crowns of two sovereign states required a new Royal coat of arms. The lion, standing for England, and a unicorn, for Scotland, serve as supporters, or figures posed to buttress the central shield of the emblem. King James I endorsed the use of this beastly imagery as it represented the harmonious and powerful union that results from two opposites — the two formerly warring nations.

Gpfr wrote: "Re La Dame à la licorne — the lion and the unicorn:The unicorn and the lion are omnipresent in this series. The unicorn represents the mythical side and the lion is an emblem of nobility. The stand..."

Thanks for that explanation Gp. Hope you really enjoy the renovated Cluny on Saturday. I was just thinking that I would love to visit Paris and take a look myself, but whenever is less clear. I will have to wait until a hopeful new normal might appear on the horizon.

Curiously I used a picture of the ruined Arbroath Abbey (destroyed by the English in 1350) in Scotland, by John Piper, in my blog this month, as an example of warring factions unable to come to terms with their ideological differences, and ambitions. here it is in case you might be interestedhttps://jediperson.wordpress.com/2022... I didn't see a cowering unicorn in the abbey ruins however. John Piper missed a trick there I think....

Sending best wishes to Tam and Dave and CCC and all of our company suffering from health and NHS issues. 🤞🤞

giveusaclue wrote: "Sending best wishes to Tam and Dave and CCC and all of our company suffering from health and NHS issues. 🤞🤞"

Boy - health and dealing with its attendant bureaucracy is everywhere. Nothing is smooth sailing. Here in the States when you are old you get to deal with Medicare, its Supplemental coverage, and a separate drug plan - each one with their hands in your pocket.

AB76 wrote: "sad to see that Rixdorf Editions has folded, a small press dealing in some rare german texts from the Wilhlemine-Weimar period in translation..."

Thanks for that link, AB. It’s a sad story, but the books he produced in 5 years look admirable. They could easily become prized collector’s items. One of the books I’m reading at the moment is Heinrich Mann’s Man of Straw, in an old Penguin Modern Classic edition, and even that is out of print.

Berkley wrote: "Perhaps I should put this in the Music section but there is a literary angle as well: I've been reading some early German short stories lately - e.g. Hoffmann, Tieck, etc - and one of the standouts..."

I have Hoffmann's Undine on CD with the RSO Berlin under Roland Bader.
https://www.discogs.com/release/99815...

It contains a German-English libretto (with dialogue, which is omitted on the recording itself). I have to admit, I don't think I've listened to it since I purchased it many years ago, but that's one advantage of my hoarding instincts: I will now put it on my To Be Listened list, which I move through much faster than my TBR list.

There's also an opera by Lortzing based on the same source as the Hoffmann - another recording I own but which has also been untouched for some years. The same orchestra, here under Robert Heger, but with a better-known cast (to me, anyway).
https://www.discogs.com/release/11805...

scarletnoir wrote: "Berkley wrote: "Peter Schlemiel - Adelbert von Chamisso."

I expect you know the definition of the word 'schlemiel' - "an unlucky clumsy person : CHUMP" (from the Yiddish)? I know no Yiddish, but somehow that word stuck in my memory!"

Yes, the collection I read it in, Tales of the German Imagination, mentions it in the notes. Chamisso wasn't Jewish himself but had German-Jewish friends from whom he probably learned of the word. Interesting character, as were nearly all these late-18th to early-19thC German Romantics.

I'm trying not to get sidetracked into exploring too much more of this era just at the moment because I want to carry on with some later 19th-C German writing, but I've already ordered another La Motte Fouquay book I hadn't heard of until now.

Bill wrote: "
I have Hoffmann's Undine on CD with the RSO Berlin under Roland Bader.
https://www.discogs.com/release/99815...

It contains a German-English libretto (with dialogue, which is omitted on the recording itself). I have to admit, I don't think I've listened to it since I purchased it many years ago, but that's one advantage of my hoarding instincts: I will now put it on my To Be Listened list, which I move through much faster than my TBR list.

There's also an opera by Lortzing based on the same source as the Hoffmann - another recording I own but which has also been untouched for some years. The same orchestra, here under Robert Heger, but with a better-known cast (to me, anyway).
https://www.discogs.com/release/11805..."

Thanks Bill, I might end up making use of that link to order the Hoffmann cd, unless I can find it in one of the few remaining cd shops in my local area.

The youtube version is from 1959: Bayerischen Rundfunks, cond. Jan Potzier, if that means anything to you (it didn't to me). I've had it on as background music the last couple weeks and I was just getting to the point where I wanted to start listening to it more closely and follow along with the libretto when I ran into the problem of being unable to find it.

Tam wrote: "I used a picture of the ruined Arbroath Abbey (destroyed by the English in 1350) in Scotland, by John Piper, in my blog this month https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2022......"

Your blog is looking very impressive now! But I didn't see the picture of the abbey?

giveusaclue wrote: "Sending best wishes to Tam and Dave and CCC and all of our company suffering from health and NHS issues. 🤞🤞"

Seconded!

NellyBells wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Thanks for that intro GPFR (just moved this into the new thread)

OT: how do you move an ongoing thread into its own?"

If I understand your question, NellyBells, AB copied his post (which most people wouldn't have seen) from the old thread and posted it again in the new one.

Gpfr wrote: "Tam wrote: "I used a picture of the ruined Arbroath Abbey (destroyed by the English in 1350) in Scotland, by John Piper, in my blog this month https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2022......"

Thanks... its on P4

Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "sad to see that Rixdorf Editions has folded, a small press dealing in some rare german texts from the Wilhlemine-Weimar period in translation..."

Thanks for that link, AB. It’s a sad ..."

the whole catalogue is well worth a read Russ. I especially recommend the Herman Bahr book on Anti-Semitism. The added notes and afterword are superb,. as with all the editions

I loved man of straw, read it about 18 years ago(a penguin translation).a lot of german writing from 1920-1945 is now available in translation but the 1900-1920 era remains pretty scarce in translation.

Its a real shame how so many great books are out of print...fading away

Berkley wrote: "Thanks Bill, I might end up making use of that link to order the Hoffmann cd, unless I can find it in one of the few remaining cd shops in my local area."

Just to make a disclaimer, I just use the Discogs site as a handy way of looking up and documenting recordings; I haven't made any purchases from that site, so I can't say how good or bad the experience might be.

For connoisseurs of academic prose, this example from Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation, courtesy of the Nov 3 NYRB:

We need to take apart—to disarticulate—theory from decorative imitation if we are to rearticulate its epistemological power in political praxis…. Part of the ongoing project is to identify the discursive powers in our diasporic condition, enacting the metamorphosis from symbolic contingencies to a new and unified collective social subject.