Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to the new thread with a special greeting to a new member, Alan, who's trying out some goodreads groups.

The weather's still unseasonably warm here in Paris — pleasant but worrying.

Has anyone read or is anyone planning to read anything by the Nobel prizewinner, Jon Fosse? I might if the library has something. I quite liked the extract given in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

As always, happy reading to all.

Morning everyone, still unseasonably warm in shires too, around 21-23c but my house is old and doesnt really experience any of this warmth in October, though with covid i may need some heating on ironically

Mild sore throat has joined the endless runny nose now, what fun but as illnesses go, its mostly like a winter cold without a blocked nose or feeling heady. No headache today, achey though

AB76 wrote: "Morning everyone, still unseasonably warm in shires too, around 21-23c but my house is old and doesnt really experience any of this warmth in October, though with covid i may need some heating on i..."

I hope it stays relatively low-key for you. I'm pretty sure it blew its way through my house a few weeks back, because we all had fatigue and achiness for a few days but otherwise no problems

Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Morning everyone, still unseasonably warm in shires too, around 21-23c but my house is old and doesnt really experience any of this warmth in October, though with covid i may need some..."

it does make me wonder if i've had it b4 and not realised, it was only a harsh cough on saturday which made me think it was covid.

i hope this is what most future cases are like for people. i'm not terribly stoic with illness at all, cos i rarely get bugs or anything, so the fact i'm almost relaxed about this covid so far shows how mild it is

the one absent symptom is fatigue. i feel physically fine

Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also have a long list of books that I want either to read again or tackle for the first time. In order to help myself think things through (and remember things) I've decided to write a mini-review after every one. I've nearly finished The Dawn Watch by Maya Jasanoff. I hope you don't mind if I post this here:

I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer". It's an interesting statement, though: one that betrays the way that a writer's actual writing can often lie, like topsoil, on those books which are more concerned with socio-cultural context. Surely, I think, anyone who truly loved the work of Conrad would see that Galsworthy receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature was one of the worst - one of the most insulting - mistakes the Academy ever made. Conrad never received it. Neither did Henry James. Nor Joyce. And, yes, I'm aware that it seems like a tiny point but Jasanoff's casual aside shows that what excites her isn't really Conrad's prose. It isn't even what she's particularly knowledgeable about. When she describes a novel she does so with the barest summary. Instead, the book is an attempt to place him: to show the world's affect on him rather than his affect upon the world.

Which is a perfectly reasonable aim, and, yes, there are some interesting passages. The bits about being on board a nineteenth-century ship and about Belgium's annexation of Congo are definitely worth a look. There's nothing egregiously silly nor terribly written in this book. It all goes down suspiciously easily. But Jasanoff's stated aim to rescue what's valuable in Conrad doesn't sit well with her lack of interest in the texts. It isn't enough to summarise what Conrad's novels are about; not even when you spend time trying to tease out motives that he was never, really, able to explain himself. What, I wanted to know, about the prose? But there you have it: prose-wise, he might as well be Galsworthy. It's as though Jasanoff has chosen to write about a dancer and then described nothing but his walk to work.

One other thing. She keeps inserting her own descriptive writing. A brave move, this, when juxtaposed with extracts from one of the best stylists of his generation. Does it work? Um. Let's just say that I admired (or, more accurately, tried to admire) her confidence.

Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also have a long l..."

Victory by Conrad remains one of the most impactful reads in the last five years for me, it wasnt the very best i read in those years but for a few weeks i was transfixed by a master at work....

AB76 wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also ..."

Oh, he's one of my favourite writers for sure. Right up there with Joyce and Henry James. Nostromo is his best, I think.

Alan wrote: "It's as though Jasanoff has chosen to write about a dancer and then described nothing but his walk to work...."

This reminds me (with a sense of shame) of a long essay I wrote at university about Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal without ever really mentioning that it was poetry.

Time for a re-read of Nostromo sometime soon. But not The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, by the sound of it.

Gpfr wrote: "Alan wrote: "It's as though Jasanoff has chosen to write about a dancer and then described nothing but his walk to work...."

This reminds me (with a sense of shame) of a long essay I wrote at univ..."

I wouldn't want to put you off completely. It has its moments. But, no, it's certainly not Nostromo.

Thanks G as ever for the new thread.

I just read a silly book

About hairdresser who is longing to get her own place, and is asked to go the a mortuary to do the hair and makeup of one of her deceased customers. Murder ensues. It is very light a definitely barmy. It ends with her accepting an offer to work regularly at the mortuary because preparing the dead pays better than simple hairdressing!

I haven't put that last bit in spoilers because, it doesn't really, and I doubt many of you will read it!

giveusaclue wrote: "Thank G as ever for the new thread.

I just read a silly book

About hairdresser who is longing to get her own place, and is asked to go the a mortuary to do the ha..."

next?

MK wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Thank G as ever for the new thread.

I just read a silly book

About hairdresser who is longing to get her own place, and is asked to go the a m..."

Pretty well up to date with that series!

Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) is now in the finished ( and probably to be recycled in some way pile), and I have moved to the '60s with A Stitch in Time from the library. As someone who has spent a lot of time sewing, I assumed that John Putnam Thatcher would be peering at the clothing industry - how wrong I was! It's about medical malpractice. Can you imagine having seven hemostats left in after being sutured. Makes one want to avoid the hospital.

Interesting, though, that both Francis Beeding and Emma Lathen are (were) writing duos. Love trivia.

Watching the terrible events from Israel, i wonder if humanity will ever learn, there is no way i could post this on the G as it would be moderated to death. I support a 2 state solution and was equally pro Israel and Palestinian but what Hamas have done and must have been condoned from on high is beyond the pale.

I have read a lot about Israel, some very interesting books, studies and conflict books but i dont think there has ever been anything like this. With the Armenian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, we have Armenians and Jews suffering again, as they have so many times in history. Some of the UK press social comments section and social media is apallingly anti-semitic

Alan wrote: "I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer"."

Hello, Alan, and a slightly belated welcome to the group. I see from your Goodreads “shelves” that you are an avid reader of contemporary poetry. It is, alas, a category I must confess to actively avoiding. I am, however, an enthusiastic Joycean; not so much Henry James (I’ve only read The Turn of the Screw and a few ghost stories).

I’d forgotten (if I ever really knew) that Galsworthy won the Nobel. I guess that could qualify him as a “major writer”; at least it avoids making a subjective judgment (arguably by outsourcing subjectivity to the Swedish Academy). The only thing I’ve read by him is a play, “The Skin Game”, which was part of a “sources for Hitchcock” reading project. It wasn’t bad, as far as reading goes; the film is very good but is forced to elide some of the play’s more lurid revelations.

This has inspired me to go back through the list of Nobel winners and see how many I’ve read.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lis...

Since I do not particularly seek out literary prize winners, I was rather surprised to have read 23 of them, though some only in single, more minor works.

A few of these were for high school or college literature classes (I probably wouldn’t have read O’Neill otherwise), none were read only because I wanted to check out a “Nobel Prize winner” (the closest in Canetti, recommended by a friend who was probably influenced by the Nobel). I didn’t include writers I knew only through musical settings (Maeterlinck and Tagore).

• Patrick Modiano (The Search Warrant)
• Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook – read thanks to Sam Jordinson; I thought the novel was terrific)
• Günter Grass (The Tin Drum – I remember this as very good, but it’s been a long time and I’ve been unable to read other Grass novels)
• William Golding (Lord of the Flies The Inheritors I thought both very good)
• Elias Canetti (Auto-da-Fé – I don’t recall a lot of this – I think it involved a rather unworldly scholar who gets involved with the demimonde).
• Saul Bellow (The Adventures of Augie March starts like gangbusters but pretty rapidly faded from my mind after reading, I think Ravelstein reveals fading powers: parts are good, parts are a mess)
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich)
• Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot an essential modern classic)
• Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
• John Steinbeck ( Cannery Row Of Mice and Men The Grapes of Wrath Sweet Thursday Tortilla Flat – the last is also a Sam Jordinson pick, much less inspired than the Lessing).
• Ernest Hemingway ( For Whom the Bell Tolls – a college assignment, A Movable Feast)
• William Faulkner (The Sound and the FuryAs I Lay DyingLight in AugustAbsalom, Absalom!)
• T.S. Eliot (most of the major poems, “Prufrock”, “The Waste land”, “Four Quartets”, others).
• Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf, Siddhartha it was the ‘60s, man)
• Pearl S. Buck ( The Good Earth, one of the lesser works read as part of an "American novels of the 1930s" project)
• Eugene O'Neill ( The Hairy Ape college assignment)
• John Galsworthy (The Skin Game)
• Sinclair Lewis ( Main Street, It Can't Happen Here started Babbitt many years ago and didn't finish, might try again someday)
• Thomas Mann (Death in Venice, Doctor Faustus – I’d had this last on my shelves for years before reading; in the end I should have bought a newer edition to avoid the Lowe-Porter translation)
• George Bernard Shaw ( The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on The Niblung's Ring, an idiosyncratic choice, but if I do read any more Shaw, it will be his music criticism)
• W.B. Yeats (Probably less than a dozen poems, but I do recall “The Second Coming” and “Sailing to Byzantium”)
• Rudyard Kipling (a few short stories in ghost and SF anthologies)
• Henryk Sienkiewicz ( Quo Vadis)

AB76 wrote: "Watching the terrible events from Israel, i wonder if humanity will ever learn, there is no way i could post this on the G as it would be moderated to death. I support a 2 state solution and was eq..."

The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner has a Q & A with Nathan Thrall, whose new book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy I've seen heavily advertised in print this past week (before the weekend attacks).

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-...

AB76 wrote: "Watching the terrible events from Israel, i wonder if humanity will ever learn, there is no way i could post this on the G as it would be moderated to death. I support a 2 state solution and was eq..."

What I think of is Janis Joplin and Me and Tommy Mcgee lyrics.

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Watching the terrible events from Israel, i wonder if humanity will ever learn, there is no way i could post this on the G as it would be moderated to death. I support a 2 state soluti..."

sadly i dont know any Janis Joplin

Alan wrote: "I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer"..."

Hi Alan. Nobel winner or not I must say that the nine books of the Forsyte Saga enthralled me. And much to my shame I had never read any Conrad until recently when I read two non-fiction works - The MIrror of the Sea which was wonderful, and A Personal Record, which was interesting but not quite so gripping. It did make me want to read Almayer's Folly though.

What amazes me about Conrad is his perfect English. I don't think he spoke it until he was in his teens, and he writes better than a lot of native speakers - a joy to read.

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer"..."

Hi Alan. Nobel winner or not I must say that the nine books of the Forsyte Saga enthralled me. An..."

Most of us of a certain age loved the original tv series, Kenneth More, Nyree Dawn Porter, Eric Portman, Margaret Tysack. It was wonderful. The remake was horribly disappointing, and I never finished watching it.

Here's a bookish gift article from the NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/ar...

Love those paperbacks!

Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also have a long l..."
Hello, Alan

I am with Frances and give here in that I loved the original tv serial of The Forsythe Saga and went on to read the books. The story stays in the mind no matter how long ago and, for me, that signifies something of merit. Most books that we read slip out of memory fairly soon. We remember if we start to read them again later, like watching a film that you have seen before.
Offhand, apart from classics, I remember Rebecca by Du Maurier which I read as a teenager, The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France ( another forgotten Nobel), War and Peace, Cronin’s The Green Years….. The mind shattering effect of The Four Quartets….

We do have a small Place for a Poem where we post ones that we like/discover every now and then. Maybe you will post one that you enjoy.

Ithought Galbraith’s The Running Grave was the best in the series so far and as I mentioned last week evidence of much research.
The mind manipulation of people in cults is quite frightening. One asks oneself ‘how could they believe…’ ‘why don’t they question…’ and so on but I believe it to be true that if what is preached answers a need then some become oblivious to inconsistency and other opinions.
The young are vulnerable particularly.
The book is probably too long again but as it lulled me to sleep at night ( and the ending was a surprise) I thought it enjoyable.

Bill wrote: "This has inspired me to go back through the list of Nobel winners and see how many I’ve read ..."

I followed your example and came up with 36 (out of 120).

With reference to current events, this struck me:

1966 - Nelly Sachs“for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel’s destiny with touching strength.”

I clicked on the link for more information as I don't remember hearing of her.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lit...

At the moment, I'm reading Hungry, a memoir by Grace Dent, The Guardian restaurant critic. Very vivid and readable.

And also, the latest in Deborah Crombie's Duncan Kincaid / Gemma James mystery series, A Killing of Innocents. A doctor and a nurse have been stabbed in London squares ...

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer"..."

Hi Alan. Nobel winner or not I must say that the nine books of the Forsyte Saga enthralled me. An..."

Yes, it was his third language! Astonishing. And you've made me think. The big prizes never seem to be given for reading pleasure do they? Perhaps they should.

CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also ..."

I Claudius (the snake slithering across the mosaic at the beginning). Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guiness.

Bill wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer"."

Hello, Alan, and a slightly belated welcome to the group. I see from your Goodreads “shelves” that ..."

Hi Bill. I loved what you said about outsourcing subjectivity to the Academy. (I'd hate to do it, though.) You inspired me to check the Nobel winners myself and I've read 45, if you count Bob Dylan. (Which - honestly? - I don't. But I suppose that's another story.)

giveusaclue wrote: "FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm inclined to distrust anyone who refers to John Galsworthy as a "major writer"..."

Hi Alan. Nobel winner or not I must say that the nine books of the Forsyt..."

Kenneth More! I haven't thought about him in ages. Yes, I seem to remember it being gripping at the time.

CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also ..."

Hi. I'm a poet myself; I'd love to post one when I get a bit of time to think about it. Could you possibly drop me the link? (And you're right, I think, about books staying in the memory. So many of them don't.)

Alan wrote: "I'm a poet myself; I'd love to post one..."

Alan, there's a section called Special Topics, where you'll find various threads including A place for a poem, and also some non-book topics like Films / Series ...

CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mind a bit. I also ..."

so would you recommend The Forsyte Saga to read CCC? I am kinda wary of society novels that are dated, or have i mis-represented the books. i have never seen the tv series

Gpfr wrote: "Alan wrote: "I'm a poet myself; I'd love to post one..."

Alan, there's a section called Special Topics, where you'll find various threads including A place for a poem, and also some non-book topic..."

Thank you.

AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mi..."

I think it’s a three book series butthere are single books which cover most of the stories. The film series with Eric Porter as Soames and Nyree Dawn as Irene was great if you ever get the chance to see it. I did like the books and read them again a couple of years ago. Depends if you like family sagas and the way the events in one generation influence later ones.

@Alan
Iposted another poem - Alice Oswald’s Fox over on A place for a poem.
If you click on the bell on the r.h.s you should see on the list and clicking there will take you .

CCCubbon wrote: "I think it’s a three book series..."

The Forsyte Chronicles are nine books in all, which must be what I read. As I remember it they followed on well from each other. They diverged into stories of other Forsytes but I remember feeling bereft when I got to the end.

AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try to focus my mi..."

You're too young to have seen it AB! 😀

You can get the complete series on dvd only £45!

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I've decided to try t..."

LOL....i cant get enough of being called young....

how does the book stand up as a work of literary fiction?

CCCubbon wrote: "@Alan
Iposted another poem - Alice Oswald’s Fox over on A place for a poem.
If you click on the bell on the r.h.s you should see on the list and clicking there will take you ."

Great. Thanks.

About , I recently found it (and read it) at the library. That's why the snark. Anyway, I wonder why it is that some British publishers get it that there is a huge market just waiting for them across the pond (Soho Crime and Allison & Busby are two that come immediately to mind) while others are very much 'hit and miss'. I know, I know there's always Amazon, but my pockets are not deep and I rely on the library a lot.

Publishers should be alerted! There's a FB page dedicated to British Mysteries - it has 37,000 members! Woe be to anyone who posts a non-British mystery there.🙄

Alan wrote: "I've read 45, if you count Bob Dylan."

I would've counted Dylan if I'd ever read one of his books or listened to one of his albums. (Do people ever do the former without first having done the latter?)

Bill wrote: "Alan wrote: "I've read 45, if you count Bob Dylan."

I would've counted Dylan if I'd ever read one of his books or listened to one of his albums. (Do people ever do the former without first having ..."

Doubtful...

AB76 wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Alan wrote: "Hi everyone, and thanks for the shout-out. My reading has lately become a little scattered (I was reading several books at once) and I..."
😀

Haven't read The Forsyte Saga, but have read I Claudius and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and can heartily recommend both.

I love Verso as a publisher, always producing books that make you think as you read and challenge the world we live in today Having said that, i'm amazed it has taken me almost 18 mths to finally start City of Quartz by Mike Davis, his study of Los Angeles and its urban legend.

Right away its fascinating and has so much within its opening 20 pages that i feel a fool to have out it aside a few times rather than start it LA, the city with too many cars, not enough public investment or transport and dreadful pollution but also a sun kissed paradise, where it is almost always summer.

My last read involving LA was Chandlers Farewell My Lovely but the city he described in the late 1940s is very different to the massive urban sprawl of Davis and the 1960-1990 period

The last LA book I read was Elroy''s LA Confidential after seeing the film. I rarely read "The book of the film"- I have usually read the book first -but made an exception in this case and very much enjoyed both. I haven't read anything more contemporary either.

I picked up Tony Hillerman's The Great Taos Bank Robbery and other True Stories of the Southwest last week and it's now time to read some of the stories.

The American SW - especially the Four Corners area (Navajo Country) will experience a solar eclipse this Saturday. https://www.nhonews.com/news/2023/oct... (Tribal parks on the reservation will be closed then. Note that other places in its path are doing the American 'money-grubbing' thing by capitalizing on the event.)

The Navajo have such a unique outlook on life (which I believe is exemplary) that I also just downloaded the first Joe Leaphorn mystery The Blessing Way for a relisten. There's not much that beats a two-fer mystery which is what one gets with Tony Hillerman - a nifty mystery and a slice of another way of life.

MK wrote: "There's not much that beats a two-fer mystery which is what one gets with Tony Hillerman - a nifty mystery and a slice of another way of life. ..."

I really like his books. I've got all the series of Leaphorn and Chee. And although I don't usually care for another writer continuing a series, I enjoy his daughter's books, too.

If anyone is following the happenings in Israel here's an OP-ED from today's Washington Post (gift link) - https://wapo.st/45r6gFG

MK wrote: "If anyone is following the happenings in Israel here's an OP-ED from today's Washington Post (gift link) - https://wapo.st/45r6gFG"

following every second of the news, amazed its hardly been mentioned here,xcept by me of course

pleased to see the US have a carrier task group off the lebanon coast and another carrier task group on the way. appalled by what Hamas has done, the bestial nature of these animals is just beyond comprehension

Gpfr wrote: "Hello, everyone.

Welcome to the new thread with a special greeting to a new member, Alan, who's trying out some goodreads groups.

The weather's still unseasonably warm here in Paris — pleasant bu..."

Thanks for your work in keeping us together. Fosse is completely new to me.