Ersatz TLS discussion

Welcome to the new thread!
I got rather overtaken with events yesterday and forgot to open it, so here it is.

Thank you.

I posted this at the end of the last thread.

Poking around in the current facility's small library, I found Erin Morgenstern's "The Night Circus." This fantasy novel is new to me; fantastic images and visual ideas, and strong enough characterization that I keep turning the pages. People who dislike magic in stories will find much to dislike, but I find it fresh and new. Rumors on the internet of a film, but "Night Circus" has too much story, too many characters, and far too many visual ideas for a feature film. It might work best as a TV miniseries.

While Night Circus has been compared to a number of works, its themes reminded me of the Deptford trilogy by Robertson Davies. We want mystery, and visual imagery is part of it. I've ordered Davies' World of Wonders.

I also enjoyed "Patriot Pirates" by Robert H. Patton. At the time of the American Revolution, the seaboard states enlisted hundreds of privately-owned vessels, ranging from longboats to armed warships, to attack British shipping. An age of fighting sail, almost all of it new to me, opens up.

Thanks G for the new thread, and your suggestions for my future reading in the last thread.

I am still reading Dan Jones's Henry V and enjoying it very much. A lot more about the man than just Agincourt which is very interesting.

Thanks for the new thread!

Only one comeback from me regarding recent posts - on Graham Swift - I read his Last Orders which won the Booker in 1996, probably quite soon after publication.

Unfortunately, it was one of those winners that gives literary prizes a bad name - for me, anyway. It wasn't terrible, but boy! Was it boring...

Last night, we started to watch a TV 'policier' based on the novel 'Sur la Dalle' by Fred Vargas... who in 'real life' is also a medieval historian as well as a novelist.

We weren't convinced - I hadn't enjoyed one of hers in English translation (it had a lot of rats and bubonic plague - a research interest of Vargas, so it was shoehorned into the absurd plot); madame hadn't enjoyed one in the original French...

But, hey ho! The cast was good (Yvan Attal, Sylvie Testud, Virginie Ledoyen...) so we thought we'd give it a go...

The story was set in Brittany - or rather in "Brittany", a bizarre place populated by yokels who touch a hunchback's hump for luck just like in the 'good ole days', and who believe in witches and some stuff to do with jumping on shadows. A version of "Brittany" which could only have been invented by a Parisian who has never visited, or who did so with eyes firmly closed - and who, to boot, insists on inserting all sorts of grotesques into her narratives.

We quit after 15 minutes or so. That's it: no more Vargas for us.

scarletnoir wrote: "Last night, we started to watch a TV 'policier' based on the novel 'Sur la Dalle' by Fred Vargas... who in 'real life' is also a medieval historian as well as a novelist.

We weren't convinced - I ..."

I like her books a lot, both the Adamsberg series and the evangelists, but Sur la Dalle was very disappointing.
I haven't watched any of the TV adaptations.

The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog is the 2nd in Michael Pearce's series about the British head of political police in early 20th-century Egypt.
Cairo, tensions between Muslims and Copts ...
Enjoyable.

scarletnoir wrote: "Last night, we started to watch a TV 'policier' based on the novel 'Sur la Dalle' by Fred Vargas... who in 'real life' is also a medieval historian as well as a novelist.

We weren't convinced - I ..."

I've read a few of her books, but they are certainly rather weird

Alessendro Spina was the pen name of Basil Khouzam, a Libyan of Syrian Maronite descent, who wrote a set of novels and stories about the city of Benghazi from the start of the Italian occupation in 1911, up to independence in 1951 and then the 1960s

His novels are concerned with Libyan and Italian characters and have been much heralded, thje entire saga is called "The Confines of the Shadow"

Having read the first volume, i am about to start the second volume Colonial Tales, which focuses on the Italian occupiers from the 1930s to 1940s. I am looking foward to it and the focus on the second city of Libya. My italian colonial census of 1931 is useful in exploring the demographics of the city.

The Italian census is incredibly detailed for its colonial states, in tabular form, with a breakdown of all non-Libyans and Lbiyans in the region of Cirenaicia(which includes Benghazi). There is an interesting town in the far east, on the Egyptian border called Bardia which is 45% Coptic Christian, while the whole of Cirenaicia is just 3% Coptic! (These details are well documented and these numbers are linked to Eritrean soldiers fighting for the Italians in the Sanussi Wars of that year)

What i cant work out is how so much of the British population in Benghazi were Catholic or Jewish.( I suspect the Catholics may have been Maltese but not sure about the Jews)

GP - Thanks for the new thread.

scarletnoir wrote: "Last night, we started to watch a TV 'policier' based on the novel 'Sur la Dalle' by Fred Vargas... We weren't convinced ... We quit after 15 minutes or so. That's it: no more Vargas for us."

I haven’t seen or read Sur la Dalle, but have read three or four other Vargas titles and found them really enjoyable, once you realized every person in the story was going to be an oddball. But that was enough - they do get a bit samey.

Robert wrote: "... Poking around in the current facility's small library, I found Erin Morgenstern's "The Night Circus."..."

Robert - Good to see you’re in a facility with some stimulating books, but what’s the latest on your recovery? You seem to have been in rehab a very long time.

Logger24 wrote: "Robert wrote: "... Poking around in the current facility's small library, I found Erin Morgenstern's "The Night Circus."..."

Robert - Good to see you’re in a facility with some stimulating books, ..."

Far too long, largely due to insurance issues. I keep being transferred from place to place. Not all take Washington State's insurance.

Agents of Influence about the British infiltration of the IRA in the 1980s is a fascinating read

Built up in short, lively chapters and covering a focused time period so far 1980-83, it shows the changes in the way the British dealed with the Republican terror groups by putting intelligence work at the front of a unified RUC, Mi5 and Army command system. This meant turning captured terrorists and infiltrating all corners of Republican terror lairs and was very effective but complicated.

Efforts were made at the expense of the SDLP to turn SInn Fein down the balllot box route,(according to the book, IRA terrorist Martin McGuinness fell into a deep depression after he became an assembly member and therefore an elected politician, rather than IRA terror chief, although he remained terror commander of the Northern IRA command). Force was used to eliminate IRA terrorists in multiple cases, though only as the last resort.

The danger was making sure the deep operatives cover wasnt blown, or the intelligence they were supplying the British would dry up. I have always been impressed how the Israelis infiltrate the Palestinian terror groups (up till last year obviously) and it seemed the British had a similar effective apparatus dealing with the IRA killers

No info is given on the Loyalist groups though, which would have been useful, although the book does refer to the fact they were also riddled with grasses and informers, though not sure if they were intelligence sources or not.

As usual nothing edifying comes out of the groups of unemployed, violent criminals who formed the IRA, a strange subculture of a damaged society that had been allowed to form as a sort of private state experiment of discrimination by the british governments in the early 1920s.

I finished ‘Held’, a Booker contender, by Anne Michaels today. A relative success for me, as I have, by my bedside, a pile of half-read books, going back months. Unlike, what seems the norm here, which is an, as yet untouched, ‘To be Read’ pile, teetering on the edge of their conscious universe. I have mixed feeling about it. Whilst positing its story arc, up and against a scientifically based universe, using various scientific breakthroughs, and characters such as Marie Curie and her daughters, it is an overwhelmingly ‘poetic’ novel about the nature of love, romance, and connection. It also has it’s philosophically gained nature descriptions, which I enjoyed, but I felt that the romantic side of the nature of the book rather undermined these elements.

Maybe I’m just not one for the belief in people being able to romantically connect, in some kind of permanent ‘soul’ connection, with very little to go on. There are just too many people, and there are a lot of people in this novel, with what seems at times quite solid, and at other times quite tenuous, connection. It doesn’t help that as a novel the timeline jumps all over the place. I became quite uncomfortable with the idea that there were all kinds of connections that remain hidden from our idea as to what makes up our universe and our own, very human, relationship to it. It had tipped over, too much for me, into the realm of ‘magical realism’. Something comes into existence when you believe in it, sort of thing. She is a respected poet, and her choice, and use of language, do positively contribute to the arc of the novel though.

My favourite book of hers was her first published novel, ‘Fugitive Pieces’ which was more of an explanation of individual histories, and the emotional cost on individuals when that history is wilfully distorted by the malign action of ‘others’. ‘Held’ is a departure from this far more ‘realist’ historic world. It requires more of the reader to invest in this ‘otherly’ world where belief seems to triumph over everything else. I feel a bit churlish here, by doubting the usefulness of describing her philosophic and romantic world, as compared to one of just a common-sense based ‘universe’, in relation to known scientific principles. Still others might well enjoy it more than I did in the end.

She can write well, and has an interesting and strong ability to introduce philosophical ideas, and imagery, that are worth thinking about. There has to be something quite positive to be said, from my position at the moment, that I managed to read it all in one sitting, and right to the end, so that it hasn’t ended up on my enormous pile of unfinished books by my bedside... I might well recommend it to him-indoors, as I would like an opinion, from an academic scientist, in his case a physicist, as to what they thought of her ‘mystical’ connections, ideas and philosophy. I did like a lot of her ‘poetic’ imagery in relation to this, but not enough to defer from what I thought was a world that I could not believe in.

I had also had ordered ‘James’ by Percival Everett, another ‘Booker’ contender, from the library. Alas it arrived just before my trip to France and Spain. I pondered taking it on a long journey, and decided not to, though it was fairly light, it was quite a large book. I read merely a page of it, and was not gripped. I didn’t like the ‘talking down’ feel of it somehow, even though I knew that there was good reason to do so in the plot, in order to make a ‘political’ point. And so, I handed it back for the other 138 people, in the library system, that were, perhaps, keener to read it than I was...

I am still adrift by two months as to catching up here, on 'Goodreads'. There will possibly come a point where it takes so long to scroll back to the heady days when I had a real live connection that I might just drift off and fade away, like a forgotten tutu on a lonely, ravaged barre...

Tam wrote: "...I might just drift off and fade away..."

Hope not, Tam. Just start afresh and don’t worry about what you missed.

Anne Michaels is a new name to me. It sounds as though Fugitive Pieces might suit me better also, rather than the magic realism of Held, even if it does feature love, romance, and the ever-interesting Curies.

AB76 wrote: " Agents of Influence about the British infiltration of the IRA in the 1980s is a fascinating read ..."

Interesting, AB. You wonder how anyone in those groups felt they could trust a single person around them, and the deep-cover operatives themselves must have had incredible self-possession.

Logger24 wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Agents of Influence about the British infiltration of the IRA in the 1980s is a fascinating ..."

i think it takes a special kind of person to be a legit undercover agent or a double agent/informer. i dont think many have easy lives when they retire or move on, living double lives or under constant pressure takes its toll

Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am still adrift by two months as to catching up here, on 'Goodreads'. There will possibly come a point where it takes so long to scroll back to the heady days when I had a real live connection..."

Hope not, Tam. Just start afresh and don’t worry about what you missed...."

Like Russell, I hope not.
I'm afraid I still don't understand the problem, what you mean by scrolling back or the real live connection.
But maybe Russell is right, just start anew.

Gpfr wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I am still adrift by two months as to catching up here, on 'Goodreads'. There will possibly come a point where it takes so long to scroll back to the heady days when I ..."

I guess what might be different is all my Goodreads notifications are embedded in my email system, which is Outlook. Occasionally Goodreads would ask me to put in a password I would get an update notification when people posted new stuff on Ersatz. That stopped in September. I have no new notifications sent out. (Though I do still get updates from friends as to what they are reading) If want to see who's posted up anything new I have to scroll back down through all my e-mails until I get to the last update in September, and I can get into GR that way and hunt out the latest discussion.

Tam wrote: "I guess what might be different is all my Goodreads notifications are embedded in my email system, which is Outlook. ..."

OK, now I see.
You don't have to go through your email. You can just go directly into Goodreads, into Ersatz:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Add it to your toolbar or whatever you do with sites you use regularly.

Then you see the different discussions and if there are new posts, it's indicated in red. If someone has sent you a direct message, that also shows up in red on the top right.

And I suppose you can tick the "Notify me when people comment" box under the Weekly TLS title, but I've never bothered. I just come in and look.

A perfect autumn day: blue sky, sunshine, normal temperature for October ...
Like hundreds of other people, I was in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Gpfr wrote: "Tam wrote: "I guess what might be different is all my Goodreads notifications are embedded in my email system, which is Outlook. ..."

OK, now I see.
You don't have to go through your email. You c..."

I have bookmarked the page and it seems to work, so I am slightly less likely to fade away like an abandoned tutu... Thanks...

Gpfr wrote: "A perfect autumn day ... Like hundreds of other people, I was in the Jardin du Luxembourg."

Getting perfect weather here too in Vermont, almost too hot for all the end-of-season tasks that need doing out in the “yard”.

AB76 wrote: "i think it takes a special kind of person to be a legit undercover agent or a double agent/informer...."

I was amazed to discover recently from Tim Parks’ book on literary Italy that Ignazio Silone, born Secondino Tranquilli, was a double agent. It seems clear from documents emerging in the mid-1990s that for ten years until 1931, while he was an activist close to the heart of the Communist Party in Italy, sitting on the central committee, he was also a police informant. I only ever read Bread and Wine, back in student days, but this was enough to establish him in my eyes as a principled Orwellian figure. That impression now has to undergo serious revision. Tranquilli spent the years after 1931 creating a new persona for himself, including publishing under a new name. Two biographies reviewed in TP’s longish essay give opposing accounts, one for, one very definitely against.

Logger24 wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think it takes a special kind of person to be a legit undercover agent or a double agent/informer...."

I was amazed to discover recently from Tim Parks’ book on literary Italy that ..."

i didnt know that, good he was informing on the communists but not so good he was informing on them to the fascists!

Logger24 wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "A perfect autumn day ... Like hundreds of other people, I was in the Jardin du Luxembourg."

Getting perfect weather here too in Vermont, almost too hot for all the end-of-season tasks..."

mild here too but with the shortening days and lots of cloud, i wouldnt call it warm...13-14c

Logger24 wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think it takes a special kind of person to be a legit undercover agent or a double agent/informer...."

I was amazed to discover recently from Tim Parks’ book on literary Italy that ..."

I didn't know that either. His book Fontamara is a wonderful book and is still a centerpiece for ant-fascist Italian literature

Paul wrote: "...His book Fontamara is a wonderful book and is still a centerpiece for ant-fascist Italian literature."

Yes - Parks makes Fontamara sound even better then Bread and Wine, so I shall be reading it at some point, in spite of everything.

Death of A Hero is already one of my top reads of 2024, with 70 odd pages to read, thanks again Bill for the tip!.

It does read like two different novels in some ways, there is a section before WW1 that seems to resemble a rather more sarcastic version of Butlers The Way of All Flesh and then after 200 odd pages, it becomes one of the most focused and realist Great War novels i have read as the character of George Winterbourne starts to emerge as one of the thousands of ordinary men who became great soldiers.

Aldington is superb in describing the soldierly nature of his generation with affection and less cynicism than i expected and also brilliant on the incredibly hard life of trench fighting in WW1

and by describing the smell of some gas as like "pear drops", he brings something so english accross the century or so that divides the Great War and now. as a kid i loved pear drops and clearly so did people of Aldingtons generation....(they were invented in York in the early 19thc)(

AB76 wrote: " Death of A Hero is already one of my top reads of 2024, with 70 odd pages to read, thanks again Bill for the tip!.

It does read like two different novels in some ways, there is a section before ..."

https://warlinks.com/pages/gas.php

AB76 wrote: " Death of A Hero is already one of my top reads of 2024, with 70 odd pages to read, thanks again Bill for the tip!.."

@AB76, have you read In Parenthesis?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4cd...

I have been thwarted by internet searches, and appeal for help. I remember a short French novel about an obsessive passion between a young man of good family and a lovely young courtesan. They live together from time to time; then the money runs low, and she starts selling herself again. Then they reconcile..

Then the French monarchy begins shipping fallen women to Louisiana. (They really did this, and on a considerable scale.) The girl is in chains, waiting to be loaded on ship; she and the young man have eyes only for each other. Then he resolves to follow her...

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Robert wrote: "I have been thwarted by internet searches, and appeal for help. I remember a short French novel about an obsessive passion between a young man of good family and a lovely young courtesan. They live..."

Manon Lescaut?

Robert wrote: "I have been thwarted by internet searches, and appeal for help. ."

I was on the point of doing something similar a few weeks ago. Every night if I woke up I'd think about a book I'd read recently. Every night more and more incidents were remembered but I couldn't think of the title or the author. I looked at my list of books read and it wasn't there. This went on for a week or two and was really 'stressing me out'.

Somehow I decided to have another look at my list and I found it. I'd actually read it in January, not a month or two previously, and it was an author I'd never read or even heard of before. The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd.

The thing was that at the time I thought it was just OK but given how much of it I recalled over those sleepless nights it must have made a deep impression on me. So I can sympathise with you!

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Robert wrote: " short French novel about an obsessive passion between a young man of good family and a lovely young courtesan..."

Manon Lescaut?"

Yes, indeed, L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. The subject of 2 operas, too, both of which I've seen:
Manon by Massenet
Manon Lescaut by Puccini. This year is the 100th anniversary of Puccini's death. I was supposed to go to a Puccini recital by Jonas Kaufmann last week, but he got covid (for the 4th time!). It's been re-scheduled for the week after next.

Bill wrote: "AB76 wrote: " Death of A Hero is already one of my top reads of 2024, with 70 odd pages to read, thanks again Bill for the tip!.."

@AB76, have you read In Parenthesis?"

no. am just making a note now, thanks again!

Just finished reading Henry V by Dan Jones. I can highly recommend it.

We all know about Agincourt, and marrying Katherine and dying leaving a baby son. But this gave a much greater insight into the man, as far as is possible from 600 years on.

I have never been Henry's biggest fan, thinking he was extremely lucky to win as Agincourt. I find it contradictory that people like him can be apparently such devout Christians but also very cruel and warmongering. Given that the French applied Salic Law to their monarchy's succession rules, and that Henry V's father actually usurped the throne, he really had not have a claim to the French throne. If any did it was the Mortimer line and they, probably wisely, kept their heads down. Despite this he nearly bankrupted England, caused the deaths of thousands of people in his quest for glory. Then failed because he caught dysentery. Is there a moral in there somewhere? Whilst being a fan Jones does highlight these inconsistencies.


Apart from the martial aspect of his reign the book also covers the administrative side of this king, which is usually ignored, and which puts him in a better light in my opinion of him.

Bit of a muddled review, but I hope it encourages some of you to take a look.

A bit of history nerding:

While the Mortimer line were the rightful heirs to Richard II, through Lionel the 2nd son of Edward II, they were overlooked because he only had a daughter, and Henry IV jumped in. It is ironic therefore, that through that line, their descendant Anne Mortimer married Richard Earl of Cambridge (executed) and gave birth to Richard Duke of York > Edward IV > Elizabeth of York >
Henry VIII. So they got there in the end. just 110 years late!

giveusaclue wrote: "Just finished reading Henry V by Dan Jones. I can highly recommend it.

We all know about Agincourt, and marrying Katherine and dying leaving a baby son. But this gave a much greater insight into t..."

Sounds interesting.

If I were in London, I'd go to this exhibition at the British Library: Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. Maybe I'll get over while it's still on.

I like their current instagram post: Women at work, medieval style.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DBjNRhMsD...

Gpfr wrote: "Sounds interesting."

A lot of history books can make for very dry reading, but I have always enjoyed Dan's books. He has a sense of humour. Like his books on the Crusades and the Templars where he points out that he has come across 3 heads of John the Baptist in various churches in the Middle East!

I am looking forward to reading


soon. Her book Shewolves is really good.

Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Just finished reading Henry V by Dan Jones. I can highly recommend it.

We all know about Agincourt, and marrying Katherine and dying leaving a baby son. But this gave a much gr..."

Perhaps I should have added
(view spoiler)[he dies! (hide spoiler)] 🤣

Logger24 wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think it takes a special kind of person to be a legit undercover agent or a double agent/informer...."

I was amazed to discover recently from Tim Parks’ book on literary Italy that ..."

Looking into the controversy, it would appear to be that he was blackmailed into informing on the communists by the fascist police that were torturing his brother in prison. He informed in exchange for a cessation to the torture, or that is what was alleged by the researchers who found the reports in the state archives. Not a good look, but not unmitigated traitor to the cause with which he was aligned

Paul wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i think it takes a special kind of person to be a legit undercover agent or a double agent/informer...."

I was amazed to discover recently from Tim Parks’ book on lit..."

as my book on the british infiltration of the IRA shows, not every informer is a scheming moneygrabber or traitor and i'm glad that Silone was not a chancer too

The IRA book explores many attempts to turn and coerce prisoners with failure and success. This was without blackmail but some threats were used, i think the saddest situation is when compromising situations are used to turn people.

Certainly one method of all intelligence agencies is to find people who feel wronged and have a greivance. One of the top agents the Brits had in the IRA decided to inform after a young female census collector was shot dead yards from where he had accompanied her to a safer place in the city of Derry, he became a vital source but was forced to leave Ulster in the end, as his cover was blown, this wasnt Stakeknife, the highest placed informant and head of the IRA anti-traitor unit

I have finished the Aldington novel and it gets 5 stars from me, the last 200 pages, totally gripping

Next up for me is Yukio Mishima Death In Midsummer a collection of stories i found via the Penguin Modern Classics website, where some really good new translations are being published

I'm also enjoying Spina;s Colonial Tales stories of the officer class in 1930s Italian Libya, written in the 1960s

Gpfr wrote: "FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Robert wrote: " short French novel about an obsessive passion between a young man of good family and a lovely young courtesan..."

Manon Lescaut?"
By George, I think you've got it!

Paul wrote: "Looking into the controversy, it would appear to be that he was blackmailed into informing on the communists by the fascist police that were torturing his brother in prison...."

That does look better, and it also fits better with the books.

giveusaclue wrote: "Just finished reading Henry V by Dan Jones. I can highly recommend it...."

It sounds like a good read, one for winter nights in front of the fire. Have you read his earlier histories? I’m wondering if it would it be an idea to start with his book on the Plantagenets.

I enjoyed your history nerding!

I did Henry V in school. The early scene where the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely discuss how to fend off a bill in the Commons to take Church lands, and then the long passage on the Salic law, seemed very tedious. You think it is all dull exposition. But years later I saw an Iraq-War-era production by the RSC (the one with Adrian Lester, an armoured personnel carrier roaring onto the stage) and here they were played as two deeply cynical old clerics puffing on cigarettes as they worked out a semi-plausible story to support Henry’s claim to the French throne, which neither of them believed for a second, and enjoying their own cleverness. Brilliant! It made you wonder if that’s what Shakespeare thought all along.

Logger24 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Just finished reading Henry V by Dan Jones. I can highly recommend it...."

It sounds like a good read, one for winter nights in front of the fire. Have you read his earlier his..."

I can recommend all Dan Jones books! The Plantagenets is a good one to start with. Be careful though, because there is one book that has a different name on either side of the Atlantic. I think it is The Hollow Crown in the UK and The Wars of the Roses in the US.

The international book site we don't mention has a 3 book deal for The Templars, Crusaders & Powers and Thrones for £23.45 at the moment, I don't know what the international postage would be!

I think Shakespeare had a great understanding of human nature.