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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 10/03/2024
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Proust, roman familial - Prix Médicis essai 2023. The author, Laure Murat, comes from an aristocratic family: from the Ancien Régime on her mother's side and the Empire on her father's. She has been estranged from her family for many years, living with a woman, teaching in California ... This book examines her past and her family in the light of À la recherche du temps perdu and is extremely well-written. At the beginning, she tells how watching Downton Abbey provided the déclic starting her on this project, a scene where the butler is measuring the distances between the place settings before a dinner party.
The Crooked House, a twisty tale where a young woman returns to the scene of a childhood tragedy. Christobel Kent has written several crime novels situated in Italy which I've enjoyed: the Sandro Cellini series (a police officer who becomes a private detective) as well as stand-alone novels like A Party in San Niccolo or The Summer House.
Gpfr wrote: "(Laure Murat) tells how watching Downton Abbey provided the déclic starting her on this project, a scene where the butler is measuring the distances between the place settings before a dinner party..."Haha! Not a scene which would have lit the fuse on any memories in my case - or, dare I say, most of us?
Thanks for the new thread, by the way!
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Murat ponders the question of how much Proust is actually read. I found the figures interesting. The sales statistics show that the numbers of books bought drop considerably after the 1st volume. Until 1980, total sales for Du côté de chez Swann were 1,263,000, then 837,000 for the 2nd volume and c.500,000 for the others.
From 1980 to 2021:
Du côté de chez Swann - 1,640,000
A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleur - 490,000
Le côté de Guermantes - 336,000
Sodome et Gomorrhe - 218,000
La Prisonnière - 200,000
Albertine disparue - 215,000
Le Temps retrouvé - 342,000
As for the number of actual readers of the whole thing ... She compares it with Ulysses:
... Proust suffers the fate of fetishised artists, whose recognition and prestige are inversely proportional to their commercial success. James Joyce, another author considered difficult, belongs to the same category ...
Like Ulysses for English speakers, reading La Recherche is presented as both an almost insurmountable feat and a categorical imperative of French culture.
At the very tail end of the last thread, Robert posted this amusing anecdote - I'm copy/posting it here in case you missed it:@Robert: "An odd moment in the library this evening. One of the librarians came up to me, and said that it had been so long since she'd seen me there that she thought I was dead. I explained that I'd passed from hospital to rehabilitation center to rest homes, but had returned since I re-learned to drive.
Though it's nice to be missed...
Robert, your librarian was surprisingly blunt/honest! You could have come out with that famous misquote of Mark Twain as a riposte:
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated...
though it seems this is not accurate, but a sort of summary written later by someone else:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/the...
Gpfr wrote: "Further to Proust, roman familial: (1) I don't think it's been translated into English and (2) you do need to have read À la recherche ....Murat ponders the question of how much Proust is actuall..."
I have to say it seems I'm with the average reader then. I read Swann's Way, it was all right but I never got round to continue with the rest. I did catch up with a radio 4 rendition of the whole book, done over a weekend, though a while back, and I found the plot as such and the characters increasingly annoying, pretentious, and of little interest to me as it went on, though some of the observations and expressions were really very good. So the myth of the book, and the premise is a lot more interesting than the reality, at least to me... So, pass me the madeleine!... I have never been aware of an olfactory experience triggering a 'reverie' though.
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[book:Proust, roman familial - Prix Médicis ..."Thanks for the new thread, GP.
That roman familial sounds tempting and I’ll probably get it. Not that I’m likely to read it soon. If anyone did a survey of the Proust-related books on my shelves that I’d started but not read all the way through, the result would show the same sharp downward slope. But on the book itself and the huge and wonderful George Painter biography, I do well – read them both cover to cover twice. I’ve been toying with a re-read of A la recherche for years. My plan at the moment is to start at the back with the magnificent Le Temps retrouvé and then see about the others. I recall a regular contributor on the old TLS (cara…?) who wrote that that volume was THE GREATEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN, and I wouldn’t disagree, excepting perhaps The Brothers K.
Downton Abbey – place settings. I remember that scene well, and am similarly attentive when laying the table.
Gpfr wrote: " The Crooked House, a twisty tale where a young woman returns to the scene of a childhood tragedy. Christobel Kent has written several crime novels situated in Italy which I've enjoyed: the Sandro Cellini series (a police officer who becomes a private detective) as well as stand-alone novels like A Party in San Niccolo or The Summer House."Thanks again for the new thread G. We seem to have come to life a bit while the last one was going.
I have read a few of Christobel Kent's books and enjoyed them but not lately. You have revived my interest!
I am currently reading
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/ja...
The latest in the series. I have read all the previous ones except "Crooked was his cane" which was a bit slow. They are a bit of an acquired taste, if that is the right description, and are about a department of the London Police nicknamed The Last Chance Saloon for officers who may have been thrown out, rightly or wrongly. There are certainly times when you have to a. suspend disbelief, and b. concentrate a bit!
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I think every so often I should re-read and am also tempted by the idea of starting at the end. On my first read I ground to a halt on Albertine disparue — it took me, I think, 3 goes over a year to get through it. And then what pleasure with Le Temps retrouvé.
Other Proust-related books I've got and should go back to, apart from Czapski which we've written about before, are:
Sur la lecture, a preface which Proust wrote to Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, but which the publisher (the excellent Actes Sud) consider can be read alone
La colombe poignardée : Proust et la « Recherche » by Pietro Citati
Just back from a day and a bit dogstting at my parents (they are in Indonesia enjoying snorkelling and nature trekking, good going for two 79yr olds)Weather was warm...around 17c on Sunday as i strolled with the faithful hound, a yellow lab called Daisy who is a constant food snuffler(quelle suprise) and likes to lie on different stairs to get a view of who is coming and going, useful when house is full of kids and people. She can see everything.
Did some reading, finished Ice Station Zebra which did what it said on the tin, though was more a whodunnit in the end than a cold war thriller.
scarletnoir wrote: "At the very tail end of the last thread, Robert posted this amusing anecdote - I'm copy/posting it here in case you missed it:@Robert: "An odd moment in the library this evening. One of the libr..."
She was the librarian who had earlier fitted a clasp at the checkout counter to accommodate my cane. She apologized for asking but admitted her surprise. Didn't feel like being too sarcastic...
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I think every so often I should re-read and am also tempted by the idea of starting at the end. On my first read I ground to a halt on Albertine disparue...
Apart from the brilliant Czapski, the only other Proust-related books I’ve managed to read from start to finish are:
Monsieur Proust by Céleste Albaret, of course.
How Proust can change your Life by Alain de Botton, quite stimulating, and not anything like as bad as lot of people like to say.
Monsieur Proust’s Library by Anka Muhlstein, a slim study of the many writers who influenced him, very interesting, if a bit clunky with too many long quotes and resumés.
Proust, the short biography by Edmund White. He of course is sensitive to the homosexuality and writes about it well, in a way that perhaps Painter still couldn’t back in the 1950s. (White himself is an attractive writer but I do get tired of his endless man-on-man stuff – there’s yet another book of his just out over here with more of the same.)
As for Albertine Disparue, it’s appalling, isn’t it? Obsessive jealousy taken to obsessive lengths. I thought I knew all about tedium, but Proust takes you to depths never previously discovered. Still, you have to get through it to arrive at the spell-binding resolution in Le Temps retrouvé.
When next I visit New York City which I haven’t done in about 15 years I really want to visit a small bookshop and reading room that has been opened up by the French Consulate on Fifth Avenue across from the Museum. They called it Albertine. The pictures on line at https://www.albertine.com (that ceiling!) suggest it is very charming.
I’m glad you mentioned Actes Sud. I’ve just finished one they published by the author you mentioned - Anne-Marie Garat. I chose, more or less at random, Les mal famées , which was available through the admirable ILS, and is about two poor working women, one older, one younger, living through WWII in what seems to be Lorient, given the references to U-Boat pens. I found it captivating from the very first pages and would recommend it to anyone if it ever got translated into English, a flowing mix of the life they endured before and during the war and of reflections you’re tempted to call poetic, except there’s no self-consciousness about it, a continual looping back and repetition that works wonderfully well, and resonant touches from Don Quixote and the Confessions of J-J Rousseau and the films of Jean Gabin. I thought it was excellent and will try others of hers (perhaps not La source).
Actes Sud did a beautiful job on the design and the printing. They must be one of the few publishers still employing a copy editor, because there wasn’t a single error, just one line strangely crushed. Running down their list of 80+ titles in the back, if I know ten of the authors that’s about it, and yet each one of these books looks like an objet de désir. Proust’s Sur la lecture has to be a must.
giveusaclue wrote: "(The books) are about a department of the London Police nicknamed The Last Chance Saloon for officers who may have been thrown out, rightly or wrongly.."A bit like a cop version of Slow Horses then?
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It looks very appealing. I've bookmarked the site, the videos seem interesting.
"I’m glad you mentioned Actes Sud. I’ve just finished one they published by the author you mentioned - Anne-Marie Garat..."
Pleased to see you enjoyed it! I first discovered her books years ago when my son gave me Aden.
As for Actes Sud, when I see a book is published by them, I'm always favourably pre-disposed!
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "(The books) are about a department of the London Police nicknamed The Last Chance Saloon for officers who may have been thrown out, rightly or wrongly.."A bit like a cop versi..."
Ha not exactly. But I can see why you may think that and they do need to be read in order!
I have again abandoned my current book. 80 or so pages in this time, and that is Elif Shafak's 'The Island of Missing Trees'. I did really want to like her books but there is something a bit 'off' about them to me. I did at least finish her book based on the poet Rumi, 'The Forty Rules of Love', but I didn't like it. The men were so self-serving to their own egos, and the women always seemed to be terribly punished for undeserving reasons somehow.Anyway this one 'The Missing Trees', has a talking and communicative plant, a fig tree, as one of the main characters. I blame Merlin Sheldrake for this more recent turn of events. Too many authors have read his 'Entangled Life', and thought well if fungi are at it, then so must be everyone else. Who can forget Stevland, the talking, and somewhat despotic, bamboo, in Sue Burke's 'Semiosis'!... At least he is entertaining, if somewhat 'over the top' in his various political machinations. A bit like a plant version of Elon Musk.
Alas Elif's fig tree is not. I felt as if I'd been stuck in a very long bus queue with an elderly neighbour rambling on about their dodgy knee (this has actually happened to me!) There is no where to go without coming out of it as seemingly 'very rude'. So, I was was bored into the ground, and gave up. Actually come to think of it, perhaps all those strands of fungi, in Merlin's book, are not so much going about being communicative with others, but are actually desperately running away from the the most boring mycorrhizal on the block!... That might well explain the amazing distances that they seem to be able to travel to?...
And also that perhaps the tendency in some of them, such as psilocybin, to be able generate imaginative hallucinogenic fantasy worlds, is a desperate attempt to get away from the existential boredom of the sensation of being just a bit 'dull'?
I should add I am not actually personally blaming Merlin, he was just publishing his research, rather I am questioning as to why particular ideas get picked up by the media, and often distorted, by others, and are promulgated, often for different purposes, by those from elsewhere, and not always for the good!..
P S I am 70 today... It's been quite a long haul really. Seven seems such a lot older than being a six somehow. Quite a few of my friends are in the eights though so I will just think of myself as the 'bright young thing' on the block and take a leaf out of Goya's book"However, his story is not quite over yet! He went into exile, at age 78, to Bordeaux in France “Goya in fact arrived, deaf, old, awkward and weak,” his old friend and protector, Leandro Fernández de Moratín reported, in a letter back to Madrid, “and without knowing a word of French and without bringing a servant (that no one needs more than he), and so happy and desirous of seeing the world”."
Tam wrote: "P S I am 70 today... It's been quite a long haul really. Seven seems such a lot older than being a six somehow. Quite a few of my friends are in the eights though so I will just think of myself as ..."Happy Birthday!
Mod
Happy Birthday!..."
Seconded! I hope you have a lovely day.
Tam wrote: "I have again abandoned my current book. 80 or so pages in this time, and that is Elif Shafak's 'The Island of Missing Trees'. I did really want to like her books but there is something a bit 'off' ..."I very rarely get on with (or nowadays even attempt) these fantasies where 'something' which in real life can't speak suddenly decides (thanks to the author) to do so. So I'm not surprised!
Tam wrote: "P S I am 70 today..."Penblwydd hapus! And remember - some of us are even a few years older....
Tam wrote: "P S I am 70 today... It's been quite a long haul really. Seven seems such a lot older than being a six somehow. Quite a few of my friends are in the eights though so I will just think of myself as ..."Wishing a fellow septuagenarian (had to look up how to spell that!) a very happy birthday and many happy returns. I am 1/10th older than you. Whatever age we have got to, life is too short to carry on reading a book that we are not enjoying. There are so many better ones out there. 🎂
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Happy birthday, Tam.
Judging by the title, it sounds as though by the end something drastic might happen to the talkative fig tree.
Tam wrote: "P S I am 70 today... It's been quite a long haul really. Seven seems such a lot older than being a six somehow. Quite a few of my friends are in the eights though so I will just think of myself as ..."happy 70th!
scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "P S I am 70 today..."Penblwydd hapus! And remember - some of us are even a few years older.... knocking on heaven's door... no, not quite yet!"
And not necessarily heaven's!
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I liked
. I've just done a search and see that I read it almost exactly 2 years ago and wrote about it then. Andy found it enjoyable but not one of her best. It's the first of her books that I read. I've just started another, Lait noir, translated into French from Turkish by Valérie Gay-Aksoy, about writing, maternity ... She suffered from post-partum depression and afterwards wrote this book, part fiction, part autobiography. I think I might have mixed feelings about it — I'll see!
At first she wrote in Turkish, but then began writing her books in English. I've just read that from English, her books are translated into Turkish and then she rewrites the translation. In Lait noir, she writes about going to tea with an older woman writer, Adalet Ağaoğlu, who likes silence to write in. Shafak on the other hand likes noise, from the street, music ...
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I was given this mammoth book for my birthday. And when I say mammoth, I'm not exaggerating, it's huge and really heavy.It's material from the archives in the Dylan Center in Tulsa Oklahoma going through his life and career: photographs, facsimiles of handwritten song lyrics / notes etc., essays written by among others Michael Ondaatje and Peter Carey ...
Making a return to the wonderful chance find of a collection of Nadine Gordimer short stories in Oxfam in 2022It seems to be a limited edition and had a postcard, from Penguin with an address on it in the front published in 1978. It includes extracts from all her short story collections from 1950 to 1972. I will be reading selections from Not for Publication(1965) and Livingstones Companions (1972).
I feel that Gordimer is THE chronicler of the apartheid era in South Africa, importantly from an anti-apartheid perspective, of course. I was due to continue my chronological reading of her novels but decided to finish off this interesting volume, which is called No Place Like: Selected Stories, which includes the two collections i am going to read.
Thanks for the good wishes everyone, for my launch into a new decade. I just wish that there would be more positive stuff out there, for the world in general. I feel quite scared, as to the way that world seems to be going, politically. I'm just wishing for there being some hope in the mix out there, somehow...
Tam wrote: "Thanks for the good wishes everyone, for my launch into a new decade. I just wish that there would be more positive stuff out there, for the world in general. I feel quite scared, as to the way tha..."Looking round at the state of the world sometimes makes me glad I am 77!
Tam wrote: "Thanks for the good wishes everyone, for my launch into a new decade. I just wish that there would be more positive stuff out there, for the world in general. I feel quite scared, as to the way tha..."i agree with you that the next 4 years looks very very grim, the USA has somehow decided to shoot itself in both feet and will be the biggest loser probably. If Europe can rise to the challenge, as it has the values we need, and counter the way the USA is heading, it could be better than it looks but we will need some hard headed politicians to checkmate the Orange Oaf
giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Tam wrote: "P S I am 70 today..."Penblwydd hapus! And remember - some of us are even a few years older.... knocking on heaven's door... no, not quite yet!"
And not necessarily heaven's!.."
Haha! Too true, in the case of this unbeliever....
Gpfr wrote: "In Lait noir, she writes about going to tea with an older woman writer, Adalet Ağaoğlu, who likes silence to write in. Shafak on the other hand likes noise, from the street, music ...."Another interesting way in which people differ. In my case, once I become engrossed and fully engaged, I'm effectively deaf and so it doesn't make any difference. It would not surprise me if you asked Shafak about some recent noise - say, a dog barking or a car braking but neither TOO loud - the answer would be "What dog?", or "What car?" But maybe I'm wrong.
One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford, i tried The Good Soldier once and loathed it, then tried Parades End and didnt get past 100 pages (interestingly my well read Grandfather borrrowed my edition and loved it), i tried The Good Soldier again during covid and nope...didnt stick with itAnyway, i picked up his short non-fiction work The Soul of London(1905), his first major work and so far i am enjoying its unusual study of place. There is very little A to Z about it or a focus on area by area, its very much in the abstract, london as a place or a thing in the mind, in the rural newcomers mind or the born and bred Londoners
I am a bit dissapointed that as its an Edwardian era account, it hasnt more about the city but then again, there is a profusion of good Edwardian London writing, this feels more like an intellectual exercise in what London "means" and its vast size and depth
I lived in the Big Smoke between 1996-1999 and i enjoyed it but i agree with Ford that there was so much of London i never knew. I never travelled to the far West or the far East of the City, there was so much i didnt see. As a shire dweller i dont miss the noise and traffic but aged 20 to 23, i didnt mind the hum of traffic outside my window and it was a familiar comforting sound on waking, the buzz of the mighty metropolis. I always recommend living in London when you are young for a few years...
AB76 wrote: "One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford...I always recommend living in London when you are young for a few years...Haven't read Ford, but I do agree that living in cities is a more attractive proposition for the young. I lived in a few between ages 26 - 40, enjoying some (Liverpool, Paris) but not others (Leeds, Cannes, Portsmouth). They can be great for culture, but the noise, pollution and general faff is a lot to contend with for a codger. We will be visiting London for the Munch exhibition next week, though!
https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibi...
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford...I always recommend living in London when you are young for a few years...Haven't read Ford, but I do agree that livi..."
Munch looks good and i like the Siena exhibit at the National Gallery, i may be visiting both soon...
AB76 wrote: "One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford, i tried The Good Soldier once and loathed it, then tried Parades End and didnt get past 100 pages"I think we’ve had this conversation before AB but anyway here goes:
I read an awful lot of FMF quite a long time ago, and collected many of his books which were sometimes out of print. (Some of you may remember the saga of Christina’s Fairy Book – for which I’m eternally grateful to Mach – wouldn’t it be nice to hear from him again.) My devotion to Ford was all because of Parades End which affected me deeply. I would say if you’ve only got 100 pages in then you need to persevere. The first book, Some Do Not, sets the scene. The next two, No More Parades and A Man Could Stand Up are amazing, and the fourth, Last Post, which Ford apparently disowned is wonderful too IMHO.
But I do agree with you about The Good Soldier. I think it’s a writer’s book – very clever but I just don’t warm to any of the characters. In fact, the only other FMF book I would re-read is Ladies Whose Bright Eyes. That too is wonderful!
I’m sure I’ve read The Soul of London but I can’t remember anything about it, however, serenpitously, this segues into my current reading. I decided that 2025 was going to be the year I re-read books I’d loved a long time ago. The list is getting longer, and includes both my favourite FMFs but the first one I read was London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins – set in Kennington (NOT Kensington) and just as good as I thought. About the lives of people living in a large Victorian house in 1939-40. And the second, which will be a mammoth read as it’s nine books is the Forsyte Chronicles. The Saga is the first three books and I’m well into number two, but I read all nine before and loved the lot. What a writer Galsworthy was, and what understanding of human nature too. I lie awake in the middle of the night worrying about Soames! Also set in London and contemporaneous with FMF.
How things have changed since then, but it's when our grandparents or great-grandparents lived and tells me anyway so much more than they themselves told me.
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford, i tried The Good Soldier once and loathed it, then tried Parades End and didnt get past 100 pages"I think we’ve had t..."
i have a paperback of the first Forstye novel on my pile, found in Oxfam
i very much enjoyed the TV adaption of Parades End mind you, about 8 years ago on the BBC. I thought it was superb
AB76 wrote: "i very much enjoyed the TV adaption of Parades End mind you, about 8 years ago on the BBC. I thought it was superb."i
Well I thought it slightly unfaithful to the books, or the actors didn't look like my picture of Christopher and Valentine and Sylvia, or something!
I remember my father loving the TV adaptation of the Forsyte Chronicles - but I didn't watch it. Kenneth More, Nyree Dawn Porter I think?
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford...I always recommend living in London when you are young for a few years...Haven't read Ford, but ..."
Would love to visit some of the galleries but getting to London is so expensive.
In the past I have visited the art galley Birmingham which is obviously cheaper and easier to get to.
An anecdote. Visited Uppark and not long after they had a major fire. Visited Wilton House and then a Rembrandt which I loved was stolen but later recovered. Then I visited the Birmingham Art Gallery for a Canaletto exhibition and soon after there was a robbery.
My friends started giving me funny looks!!
https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art...
The painting is so brilliant you feel you could almost touch her paper thin skin.
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "One author i have always found hard to enjoy is Ford Madox Ford...I always recommend living in London when you are young for a few years...Haven't re..."
i agree that rail transport is ridiculously expensive, i'm about 50mins from London on a slow, old line but i always make sure the trip is worth the cost
Mod
Enjoy your re-reading! As I've said here before, I re-read a lot as well as reading new things.
On Thursdays when I go to art history classes in the Petit Palais, I usually have a look at the shop. They always have some novels on display and I'm always amused to see La Dynastie des Forsyte. I suppose it's because of the period in which it's set, fits with the Belle Epoque.
giveusaclue wrote: "Would love to visit some of the galleries but getting to London is so expensive....Visited Wilton House and then a Rembrandt which I loved was stolen but later recovered...
https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art...
The painting is so brilliant you feel you could almost touch her paper thin skin.."
You are quite right about the cost of travel to London - very expensive nowadays. We'll drive to Carmarthen, park the car overnight and catch a train to Paddington using a railcard to reduce the price - then stay overnight with friends who have a flat in the converted Arsenal Highbury stadium. We're lucky there!
As for Rembrandt - by some way my favourite artist - first of all, thanks for that link to a painting I didn't know and haven't seen. He had astonishing technique allowing for profound interaction with the subjects. Best of all IMO is his series of self-portraits showing the progression from a cocky young man to a disillusioned and unwell codger. Incredibly moving and honest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-po...
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i very much enjoyed the TV adaption of Parades End mind you, about 8 years ago on the BBC. I thought it was superb."i
Well I thought it slightly unfaithful to the books, or the actors..."
my mother was a huge fan of series 'The Forsyte Saga', everything in the house had to stop, and we couldn't speak a word when it was on. It is very well done I believe, but I haven't read the books so not sure how true to the books it was. It is well worth a look though. Soames was very well played by Eric Porter. And Nyree Dawn Porter did icey cool beauty and fraying vulnerability with great aplomb, and the chap who played the architect lover was pretty good as well...
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Would love to visit some of the galleries but getting to London is so expensive....Visited Wilton House and then a Rembrandt which I loved was stolen but later recovered...
h..."
He liked painting himself, didn't he?
Tam wrote: "FrancesBurgundy wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i very much enjoyed the TV adaption of Parades End mind you, about 8 years ago on the BBC. I thought it was superb."i
Well I thought it slightly unfaithful to ..."
The original tv series was brilliant, but don't even think of trying the later one with Damien Lewis and particularly the ultra wooden Gina McKee as Irene.
Mod
I found this in one of the book boxes near my home.
Shafak suffered from post-partum depression after the birth of her daughter. The book begins and ends with this, bookending a reflection on women writers (including Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Doris Lessing, Ayn Rand, Turkish writers that I hadn’t heard of before and more) and maternity. She also considers wives of writers like Sofia Tolstoi. The big question is should she have a baby?
She personifies different facets of her personality in a chorus of interior voices consisting of 6 miniature women, Miss Practical Intelligence, Miss Cynical Intellectual, Dame Dervish etc. These can be found inside her, but also outside, quarrel, want to impose their way ... I found this a bit irritating although amusing at moments. Her depression is also personified as a djinn.
Looking at reviews, I see that reactions have been really mixed, as are my own feelings. A review in Le Monde said: "Until the very last line, you can't tell whether it's a novel, an essay, fiction, fantasy, nocturne or scholarly digression." And I would concur.
Although I got rather impatient at times and towards the end skipped a couple of sections, I liked the way it was written and am glad I read it. But I won't be keeping it, it'll go back in a book box for someone else.
Mod
Thank you for that marvellous painting.
giveusaclue wrote: "He liked painting himself, didn't he?.."I think the self portraits form a sort of autobiography*, since he wasn't a writer. The later portraits of his old age are brutally revealing. Besides, when he was young - and in old age following bankruptcy - he could benefit from a model who didn't have to be paid!
Edit: after writing that, I went back to Wikipedia to see what was said there about his self-portraits, only to find (as so often) that this was another of my thoughts or inspirations which had already been expressed by someone else!
Kenneth Clark stated that Rembrandt is "with the possible exception of Van Gogh, the only artist who has made the self-portrait a major means of artistic self-expression, and he is absolutely the one who has turned self-portraiture into an autobiography."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-po...
Gpfr wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "a Rembrandt which I loved..."Thank you for that marvellous painting."
You are welcome G
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Good reading to all!