Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 25/03/2024
Thanks G for all your efforts. I echo your hopes!
I finished the second of the Idridason novels this afternoon - Oblivion.I had not realised that these two books were prequels as I read the others some five years ago and have forgotten much. I would agree with G that Erlander is rather depressed but persistent and I enjoyed this second book particularly.
Think I might hop over to Ireland now and visit Tana French writing about The Hunter.
GP - Thanks as ever for renewing the page. Lovely flowers. The only thing showing here is the garlic (which is planted in the fall) - and that has just disappeared under 10-12" of snow.
Something outside my normal range:
The Prosecutor: One Man’s Pursuit of Justice for the Voiceless – Nazir Afzal (2021)
This is the engaging story of a lonely boy from an immigrant family who grew up in Birmingham, learning to run from racist thugs, qualified as a solicitor, gave up his job in private practice when he couldn’t stand it any more defending people he was convinced were guilty, got a job at the newly formed Crown Prosecution Service in London, and through his competence and hard work rose eventually to become a Chief Prosecutor.
He says that in those early days everyone hated the CPS, especially the police. The arrival of the CPS hugely reduced their power. Before, when the police had control of all prosecutions, and used it to threaten suspects, the attitude was, we’ve got a bit of evidence, no need to do more, he’s a bad ‘un, we’ll take it to the jury, let them decide. Now the test was, do we, the CPS, have enough admissible evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of obtaining a conviction, and is it in the public interest to proceed? If not, they dropped the charges, and the police would be furious.
Afzal developed a practice of consulting with the police as the evidence was gathered, not standing off to maintain a pure independence. He would point out where the case needed strengthening. This liaison is now standard. He also paid close attention to the victims and the witnesses, as persons, not deployable pieces. He was one of the first prosecutors to actively go out and speak with community groups, not excluding assembled drug addicts and the BNP.
In London, Afzal was one of the leaders in bringing about a sea change in the determined prosecution of honour killings. As Chief Prosecutor in the North-West he dealt with the Rochdale paedophile grooming ring, the Filipino maid kept as a domestic slave for ten years, the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers, and the ghastly murder of two female police officers by a gangster named Cregan who used automatic weapons and a grenade to finish them off.
He seems a thoughtful and decent man. His background made him an unusual figure. For years he would be the only non-white face in a roomful of police and administrators. He has the advocate’s ability for putting complex issues in straightforward terms. He tells us something of his family life, and his Muslim religion.
For many people in the UK it must seem the CPS has always been there. It was the Thatcher government that instituted the reform. I would like to say that the CPS is one of modern Britain’s success stories. Regrettably, it appears that budget cuts have severely damaged its effectiveness.
Something outside my normal range:
The Prosecutor: One Man’s Pursuit of Justice for the Voiceless – Nazir Afzal (2021)
This is the engaging story of a lonely boy from an immigrant family who grew up in Birmingham, learning to run from racist thugs, qualified as a solicitor, gave up his job in private practice when he couldn’t stand it any more defending people he was convinced were guilty, got a job at the newly formed Crown Prosecution Service in London, and through his competence and hard work rose eventually to become a Chief Prosecutor.
He says that in those early days everyone hated the CPS, especially the police. The arrival of the CPS hugely reduced their power. Before, when the police had control of all prosecutions, and used it to threaten suspects, the attitude was, we’ve got a bit of evidence, no need to do more, he’s a bad ‘un, we’ll take it to the jury, let them decide. Now the test was, do we, the CPS, have enough admissible evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of obtaining a conviction, and is it in the public interest to proceed? If not, they dropped the charges, and the police would be furious.
Afzal developed a practice of consulting with the police as the evidence was gathered, not standing off to maintain a pure independence. He would point out where the case needed strengthening. This liaison is now standard. He also paid close attention to the victims and the witnesses, as persons, not deployable pieces. He was one of the first prosecutors to actively go out and speak with community groups, not excluding assembled drug addicts and the BNP.
In London, Afzal was one of the leaders in bringing about a sea change in the determined prosecution of honour killings. As Chief Prosecutor in the North-West he dealt with the Rochdale paedophile grooming ring, the Filipino maid kept as a domestic slave for ten years, the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers, and the ghastly murder of two female police officers by a gangster named Cregan who used automatic weapons and a grenade to finish them off.
He seems a thoughtful and decent man. His background made him an unusual figure. For years he would be the only non-white face in a roomful of police and administrators. He has the advocate’s ability for putting complex issues in straightforward terms. He tells us something of his family life, and his Muslim religion.
For many people in the UK it must seem the CPS has always been there. It was the Thatcher government that instituted the reform. I would like to say that the CPS is one of modern Britain’s success stories. Regrettably, it appears that budget cuts have severely damaged its effectiveness.
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This sounds interesting.
For many people in the UK it must seem the CPS has always been there. It was the Thatcher government that instituted the reform.That seems like utter madness to me, not having the policing and prosecutorial bodies independent from one another. Here in Italy, there are very many holdovers from medieval justice bodies that seem so mind-blowing to me. I remember specifically learning in high school civics class that things like due process and double jeopardy protections were constitutionally codified because they were lacking in most European countries. In Italy, there are no double jeopardy protections at all, which leads to a gradual tyranny of the state.
First of all, thanks to Gp for this new thread...Secondly - I posted a comment just before the last thread closed and will re-post it here in case some of you missed it:
I'm currently reading 'Darktown' by Thomas Mullen, which deals with the first black police officers in Atlanta. More on that, and the overt racism they faced, later.
Here, I just wanted to mention three things I have learnt so far, which relate to what seems like odd laws and/or use of language.
First - I was astonished to come across the phrase 'premature anti-Fascism'... what can this possibly mean? I wondered. It seems as if it was FBI code for those who fought against Franco for the communist or anarchist brigades. Equally bemused was one Bernard Knox - a Cambridge graduate who did just that, then emigrated to the USA and later fought for the OSS during WW2. I came across his fascinating article while researching the phrase:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-x...
Another dubious use of language appeared in the book, relating to (apparently) the crime of a black man making eye-contact with a white woman... I have forgotten the exact term, but it was something like 'conspicuous staring'*. Now, I know and understand that women don't like to be stared at by men, but it seemed as if this could be interpreted as the merest accidental crossing of glances in a fleeting moment - if the 'offended party' chose to make something of it.
*My thanks to Bill, who correctly identified the phrase as 'reckless eyeballing' (!)
A final piece of history - maybe - was the implication that lynchings (of blacks) were 'legal'. I'm a bit doubtful about that, but it is clear that many such extra-judicial killings were never investigated or prosecuted. If such murders were indeed 'legal', that makes it even worse.
Edit: After writing that comment, I since found out that:
Some 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress between the end of the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement, but none passed. Finally, in 2022, 67 years after Emmett Till's killing and the end of the lynching era, the United States Congress passed anti-lynching legislation in the form of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynchin...
Paul wrote: "For many people in the UK it must seem the CPS has always been there. It was the Thatcher government that instituted the reform.That seems like utter madness to me, not having the policing and ..."
Impression I get is that the police will put a case forward to the CPS who then refuse to prosecute. If they do then the judge often hands down a derisory sentence. The police have a lot of problems but the decent majority of then must wonder why they bother sometimes. Between the CPS and the budget minded woke superiors.
giveusaclue wrote: "Paul wrote: "...That seems like utter madness to me, not having the police and prosecutorial bodies independent ..."
Impression I get is that the police will put a case forward to the CPS...
Giveus -I expect you’re right. Being out of the country I don’t have a real sense of how it now works day to day.
But the CPS has done good work. The long section on honour killings shows how determined leadership and imaginative solutions can make a difference.
On a wider front I was interested to learn that under s76 of the Serious Crimes Act 2015 (also the result of an initiative from the CPS) there is now an offence of “controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship.” The penalty is up to 5 years imprisonment. Previously there was nothing specific to deal with, e.g., a controlling husband driving a wife to harm herself. We all know of situations like that. There is a detailed explanation on the CPS website which includes a multitude of examples inside and outside the family where the section would apply.
Paul – Agreed. The old system was nuts.
Impression I get is that the police will put a case forward to the CPS...
Giveus -I expect you’re right. Being out of the country I don’t have a real sense of how it now works day to day.
But the CPS has done good work. The long section on honour killings shows how determined leadership and imaginative solutions can make a difference.
On a wider front I was interested to learn that under s76 of the Serious Crimes Act 2015 (also the result of an initiative from the CPS) there is now an offence of “controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship.” The penalty is up to 5 years imprisonment. Previously there was nothing specific to deal with, e.g., a controlling husband driving a wife to harm herself. We all know of situations like that. There is a detailed explanation on the CPS website which includes a multitude of examples inside and outside the family where the section would apply.
Paul – Agreed. The old system was nuts.
Paul wrote: "For many people in the UK it must seem the CPS has always been there. It was the Thatcher government that instituted the reform.That seems like utter madness to me, not having the policing and ..."
Indeed, the previous system was basically a pillar of corrupt policing and led to all kinds of problems, the reforms of the 1980s made sense, with CPS teams embedded in police stations.
I think the anglo-saxon legal system (Common Law) vs the mainly european(civil law) is an interesting mix of pros and cons. Sadly with precedent being a pillar of common law we are finding the Supreme Court in the USA starting to muddy that water with their orginalist vision, a kind of lets freeze all law in say 1820 and then go from thjere!
giveusaclue wrote: "... the budget minded woke superiors.."Since funding for the justice system in the UK is decided by the government of the day, I am not in the least surprised to discover that the woke brigade are now running the Tory party.
The Law Society certainly agrees with you!
https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/....
scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "... the budget minded woke superiors.."Since funding for the justice system in the UK is decided by the government of the day, I am not in the least surprised to discover that..."
the woke brigade run a lot of things in this country!
AB76 wrote: ".the woke brigade run a lot of things in this country!"It's even worse than we thought - today, PM Rishi Sunak refused to deny that he was a member of the Deep State!
“Is there a deep state: are you part of it, am I part of it?” the Conservative MP William Wragg asked Sunak in a follow-up.
“Probably a question for her,” Sunak added, before deadpanning: “But I probably wouldn’t tell you if I was Will, would I? And we wouldn’t tell anyone else either, would we?”
https://www.politico.eu/article/rishi...
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: ".the woke brigade run a lot of things in this country!"It's even worse than we thought - today, PM Rishi Sunak refused to deny that he was a member of the Deep State!
“Is there a d..."
i saw that, even the collapsed bridge in Baltimore is attracting conspiracy theories....!
I didnt persevere with Samuel Butler in the end, the novel seemed far too traditional and A-Z, i do find scene setting novels of family history are not my bag anymore, i prefer things to open and get moving or small settings, where its focused on a brief amount of timeSo i have moved on to another Quebec set noir novel, following on from my first Vehicule Press edition this time last year.
Whispering City
Its likely to be a fairly lightweight read and is a curioisity as its very rare and is actually a novel adpated from a 1947 Canadian film, set in Quebe City.In some ways its a novel i would instantly avoid, film for me is a inferior medium than literature and i wonder just how much of the novel was from watching the film and not the screenplay, having said that it has started well with some nice touches and i will give it a go
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The book was The Underground Man and the 3 participants in the programme were very warm in their praise for his writing.
The other guest on the programme had previously enjoyed reading the correspondence of MacDonald with Eudora Welty.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
scarletnoir wrote: "First of all, thanks to Gp for this new thread...Secondly - I posted a comment just before the last thread closed and will re-post it here in case some of you missed it:
I'm currently reading 'D..."
"Pre-mature anti-fascism" is a buzz phrase of the hard left. In English, it means "they were Communists."
Robert wrote: ""Pre-mature anti-fascism" is a buzz phrase of the hard left. In English, it means "they were Communists."."Could you expand on that? I had a different impression from the context in which I've heard the phrase used but have never looked it up or researched it to check.
Berkley wrote: "Robert wrote: ""Pre-mature anti-fascism" is a buzz phrase of the hard left. In English, it means "they were Communists."."Could you expand on that? I had a different impression from the context i..."
what a strange phrase!
AB76 wrote: ".i do find scene setting novels of family history are not my bag anymore...If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth...
The (to me) hilarious opening to Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye"... a Marmite book, apparently, though it puzzles me as to why some people don't like it... they presumably don't care for the narrative voice.
AB76 wrote: "film for me is a inferior medium than literature .."Can't agree with that.
Art forms are different from each other - you can't compare. Plus, all art forms have their high points and brilliant practitioners, as well as their duffers and cynics.
I doubt you could construct an argument based on the greatness of "Fifty Shades of Grey" as opposed to the (in your view) inferior "Spirit of the Beehive"... for example.
Gpfr wrote: "...Donna Leon talking about Ross MacDonald...The book was The Underground Man and the 3 participants in the programme were very warm in their praise for his writing.
The other guest on the programme had previously enjoyed reading the correspondence of MacDonald with Eudora Welty."
Those two carried on a significant correspondence before becoming personally acquainted - and friends. Some people even suspected a romantic liaison, though that seems unlikely.
Welty is one of the very many (and one of the best known) authors and critics who praised and admired Macdonald's novels.
Robert wrote: ""Pre-mature anti-fascism" is a buzz phrase of the hard left. In English, it means "they were Communists."I assume you meant to write: "the hard right"?
It seems the phrase was coined by someone in the US government to describe returning volunteers from the Spanish Civil War who fought on the Republican side. I wonder if those who fought for Franco received equivalent opprobrium and labelling?
(Note: the following link is labelled "not secure" though I rather doubt that it is especially risky - just flagging that up, in case.)
http://thetypescript.com/premature-an...
This is the opening paragraph:
They stood on the stage of the Great Hall at the Cooper Union in New York City in the spring of 2006, where in 1860 Abraham Lincoln had publicly committed himself to the destruction of slavery. “Let us have faith that right makes might,” the future president had said, “and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
One hundred and forty-six years later on the same stage a group of old men recalled for the auditorium audience how they had answered their own call to duty. Now in their 90s, George Sossenko, Abe Smorodin, Jack Shafran, John Penrod, Al Koslow, Matti Mattson, Hy Tabb, and Moe Fishman had once been young men when they joined the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in a crusade against the tide of Fascism then sweeping across the world. They spoke of their fallen comrades, their sacrifice, and their commitment to democracy and peace.
They lost almost everything when they returned home to the US in 1939. The hopeful, progressive Spanish Republic that they had fought to defend lay in smoking ruins, transformed into a Fascist dictatorship under Il Caudillo, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Labeled “Premature Anti-Fascists” by their own government, they lost their passports and freedom of movement, continually under surveillance. Even decades later, on that day men with surveillance equipment watched carefully from the corner of the Bowery and Cooper Square.
Sossenko chuckled. “I’m a dangerous old man now,” he said. “I was certainly a dangerous young man then.” They were dangerous, indeed, because even 70 years later, they had no doubt that the hardship, the struggle, the sacrifice had all been worth it. I asked Sossenko if he had any regrets. “None,” he said. “We stood up to Fascism and said ‘you shall not pass.’ We must always stand up to Fascism.”
“Premature Anti-Fascists:” The Story of America’s First Antifa
by Matthew Friedman | Jun 11, 2019
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "film for me is a inferior medium than literature .."Can't agree with that.
Art forms are different from each other - you can't compare. Plus, all art forms have their high points an..."
when i mean literature, i definitely dont mean 50 shades of grey...lol
scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: ""Pre-mature anti-fascism" is a buzz phrase of the hard left. In English, it means "they were Communists."I assume you meant to write: "the hard right"?
It seems the phrase was coi..."
The hard right has its own epithets. "Premature anti-fascists" means that the people involved were anti-fascists before the mainstream caught on to it. They were Communists, therefore they were good guys. The term is quite broad; it can mean various degrees of following the Party line.
AB76 wrote: "when i mean literature, i definitely dont mean 50 shades of grey...lol"I'm sure not - but there is a problem of definition.
I would not claim that any superhero film is better than a decent book; but neither would I claim that '50 shades...' is better than any half-decent movie.
Thus - it is pointless to compare different categories. What you are doing is expressing a preference for one art form over another - and everyone has preferences. That doesn't mean that it is sensible to make value judgements based on those!
Robert wrote: "The hard right has its own epithets. "Premature anti-fascists" means that the people involved were anti-fascists before the mainstream caught on to it. They were Communists, therefore they were good guys. The term is quite broad; it can mean various degrees of following the Party line."Yes, yes... but surely you meant "hard right" and not "hard left"? It seems clear where the phrase comes from, at least based on my internet searches.
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I've had this for a while — I was attracted by the premise: Egon Schiele and his "muses" and had seen some good reviews.
I started it and have given up (for now? not sure) after the first section. I don't find it very well-written and it all seems rather insubstantial, we're skating along over the surface and I'm not convinced by any of the characters.
Am quite enjoying the TLS, though i now face the risk of three reviews of similar books accross the LRB , NYRB and TLS, of which the longer journals will probably do a better jobStarted another Raymond Williams novel too, his 1978 The Fight for Manod. Many felt his novels lacked the brilliance of his non-fiction but i found Volunteers was a good read and this novel has started well. I still have to read his debut novel Border Country
Finished The Last Days of the Spanish Republic
, while it was brilliant in detail over a small 8 w]eek period, the bias of Preston towards the communists meant most of the book was strongly anti-Anarchist and Socialist. Possibly the least objective historical account i have read since i put myself through one of Niall fergusons nonsense worksNext up in non-fiction is a book on Japanese colonial Korea
Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945
Gpfr wrote: "Has anyone read The Flames by Sophie Haydock?..."No... but Schiele is a potentially interesting subject. He certainly had 'unusual tastes', and a short but eventful life.
We saw an excellent exhibition of his drawings at the Courtauld in Somerset House a few years ago.
Went to the audiologist today... and as the local Waterstones is directly across the road, I took my life in my hands and went in for a browse, for the first time since the COVID lockdowns.You can guess the rest - I came out with two books - Erasure by Percival Everett and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. Both were more or less impulse buys - I may have read reviews but am not certain. The opening pages seemed promising, so...
Anyone read these?
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No... but Schiele is a potentially interesting subject. He certainly had 'unusual tastes', and a short but eventful l..."
Exactly my thinking. But the book (so far) shows him very much from the outside & not in an interesting way. Conventional picture of handsome bohemian artist.
scarletnoir wrote: "Went to the audiologist today... and as the local Waterstones is directly across the road, I took my life in my hands and went in for a browse, for the first time since the COVID lockdowns...."
Erasure has received quite a lot of media attention here, and it sounds entertaining with a serious theme.
You would think the author’s name was unusual, but I worked with a different Percival Everett for years.
Erasure has received quite a lot of media attention here, and it sounds entertaining with a serious theme.
You would think the author’s name was unusual, but I worked with a different Percival Everett for years.
scarletnoir wrote: "I came out with two books - Erasure by Percival Everett"Erasure is evidently a popular choice at the moment, apparently because of being the basis for the film American Fiction.
Here's a gift link to a NY Times podcast discussion of the book from a few weeks ago. The panel made the book sound pretty good, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to actually reading it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/bo...
I remember that a popular book when I was in high school was Manchild in the Promised Land, which I thought of when the panel talked about "My Pafology", the novel-within-the-novel.
AB76 wrote: "Finished The Last Days of the Spanish Republic , while it was brilliant in detail over a small 8 w]eek period, the bias of ..."If you get back in a 1930s mood, Mishima's Runaway Horses might interest you.
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I usually enjoy Robert Goddard's books and this one is no exception. In The Fine Art of Uncanny Prediction we follow 2 investigations: Umiko Wada took over the Kodaka Detective Agency when her boss died and her latest case turns out to be linked to one of his and to a man who, although very young at the time, rose to prominence and prosperity after WWII.
This is the biography of the 'model' for Proust's duchesse de Guermantes by Laure Hillerin, La Comtesse Greffulhe: L'ombre des Guermantes. In the foreword, the author points out that in spite of being the "star" of Paris at la Belle Epoque, she is now unknown to the general public, eclipsed by her fictional counterpart.She was in fact a remarkable woman:
Only a few American musicologists know today that she played a leading role in musical life at the turn of the century - bringing Wagner back into the limelight, patron of Fauré and a whole generation of composers and performers, helping Diaghilev to set up Les Ballets russes in France. Nobody knows any more that she helped Marie Curie to find funding for the Radium Institute, and Edouard Branly to complete his research into telemechanics.
The book is not strictly chronological: the first section gives a chronological overview of her life, then the others deal with different aspects: music, science, Proust ...
scarletnoir wrote: "Robert wrote: "The hard right has its own epithets. "Premature anti-fascists" means that the people involved were anti-fascists before the mainstream caught on to it. They were Communists, therefor..."There is apparently a scholarly dispute over this phrase-- the researchers found no FBI use of "premature anti-fascists." Given that Stalin made his deal with Hitler shortly after the Spanish Civil War wound up, Stalin himself may have written the Communist contingent off as premature....
Gpfr wrote: "I'm reading 2 books: I usually enjoy Robert Goddard's books and this one is no exception. In [book:The Fine Art of Uncanny Prediction|583630..."Good isn't it? And I loved the first in the series too.
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/ro...
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Finished The Last Days of the Spanish Republic , while it was brilliant in detail over a small 8 w]eek period,..."i think i have read that, i must check, i love Mishima, though Soseki is maybe my favourite Japanese author
Mod
..."I loved the first in the series too."
Yes, so did I.
Robert wrote: "Given that Stalin made his deal with Hitler shortly after the Spanish Civil War wound up, Stalin himself may have written the Communist contingent off as premature...."This makes zero sense, since:
The Soviet Union was the main ally of the Second Spanish Republic, contributing tanks and armored cars (especially the T-26 tank, BA-6 armoured car and BT-5 tank), hundreds of airplanes, several hundred thousand firearms and artillery pieces, as well as sending huge amounts of ammunition and several hundred Soviet professional pilots, tankers and sailors. Joseph Stalin would later order the purge of the communists that were anti-Stalinist. The Stalinist Communist Party of Spain subsequently exterminated the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), as well as the anarchists in Catalonia.
Stalin certainly considered "the wrong sort of Republicans" to be enemies, but his very own group - strongly backed by Moscow - would themselves become "premature anti-Fascists" had he coined the phrase, since they took up arms against Franco from the start.
young men... (who) joined the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in a crusade against the tide of Fascism... lost almost everything when they returned home to the US in 1939... Labeled “Premature Anti-Fascists” by their own government, they lost their passports and freedom of movement, continually under surveillance.
http://thetypescript.com/premature-an...
I first heard the remarkable phrase “premature anti-Fascist” in 1946 when, fresh out of the U.S. Army, I went up to New Haven, Conn., for an interview with the chairman of the Yale classics department... To jazz up my application a bit, I had included my record in the U.S. Army... in July 1944, I had parachuted, in uniform, behind the Allied lines in Brittany to arm and organize French Resistance forces and hold them ready for action at the moment most useful for the Allied advance. “Why were you selected for that operation?” he asked, and I told him that I was one of the few people in the U.S. Army who could speak fluent, idiomatic and (if necessary) pungently coarse French. When he asked me where I had learned it, I told him that I had fought in 1936 on the northwest sector of the Madrid front in the French Battalion of the XIth International Brigade. “Oh,” he said, “you were a premature anti-Fascist.”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-x...
premature antifascist (plural premature antifascists)
(historical, US, often derogatory) One who opposed fascism at a time when the United States government was still on relatively friendly terms with fascist Italy and (to a lesser extent) Nazi Germany; especially a supporter of the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/premat...
The most detailed piece I have been able to find so far is this one (I haven't read the whole thing yet):
As Peter N. Carroll noted in the pages of The Volunteer back in 2003 and later in his book From Guernica to Human Rights (2015), the first time the term “premature antifascist” appeared in print was probably May 1943, when the New York tabloid newspaper PM used it to describe the discrimination Spanish war veterans faced. At the beginning of the year, Jack Bjoze, the executive secretary of VALB, had written a letter to President Roosevelt protesting the Army’s discrimination against Spanish Civil War veterans, particularly considering their “military experience in actual combat.” Since both the White House and the Pentagon failed to respond, in the spring Bjoze embarked on a lobbying tour of Washington, D.C. In April, Drew Pearson, the influential author of the syndicated column “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” published two stories about discrimination against Spanish Civil War veterans by the Army. The War Department issued denials, but stories of ill-treatment persisted. On May 23, 1943, PM dedicated a full page to the story under the headline “‘Premature’ Anti-Fascists Still in Army Doghouse,” specifically citing the washing out of qualified Spanish war veterans from Officer Candidate School. According to Leo J. Margolin, the author of the story, a group of concerned OCS commanders traveled to Washington in the fall of 1942 to determine why these candidates, who were well-regarded by both their commanding officers and their colleagues, were being denied commissions. “[They] were told little except perhaps this: ‘He was prematurely anti-Fascist.’ (Spanish War veteran).”
https://albavolunteer.org/2024/02/pre...
Of course, I may be completely wrong, and there is some document somewhere that imputes the original authorship of this phrase to Stalin, but if so it appears very difficult to find. Perhaps you will have better luck doing that than I have.
BWB has become one of my key sources for books, since i started my amazon alternative approach in 2022(right now the Amazon level is 42% and falling of all books ordered since then)What it has managed to unlock is loads of books that amazon would relegate to the bottom of the pile or just wouldnt list
One of them is a French study of the Solidarity movement in 1980-81 Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement: Poland 1980-1981: Poland 1980-81 (Msh) by Alain Touraine (16-Jun-1983) Paperback
. It has a wonderful premise in the introduction so far and i look foward to re-visiting that time. I was too young to remember it firsthand but vividly remember the 1989 situation and the re-emergence of Soldarityi loved Wajda's film Walesa: Man Of Hope that covers that period and the decade after in detail
Gpfr wrote: "I'm reading 2 books...La Comtesse Greffulhe: L'ombre des Guermantes. In the foreword, the author points out that in spite of being the "star" of Paris at la Belle Epoque, she is now unknown to the general public..."
She’s still a star in my heart. George Painter gives a wonderful portrait of her.
She’s still a star in my heart. George Painter gives a wonderful portrait of her.
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I've posted a picture in Photos.
Gpfr wrote: "This is the biography of the 'model' for Proust's duchesse de Guermantes by Laure Hillerin, La Comtesse Greffulhe: L'ombre des Guermantes."I was reading the NYRB review of Finding Time Again, a translation from 2003, but new to to the US market thanks to, as the reviewer notes, Mickey Mouse.
This got me to wondering how many readers here have read Proust.
It's the kind of modernist monument I would have been likely to read at one time, but somehow it never attracted me sufficiently to undertake its Everest-like proportions. Also, I've never been quite convinced that the novel (the review indicates that the author considered it a single book) would be adequately experienced in English (at least in available translations), especially by an American not very conversant with French manners and society.
Mod
Me. I read it in French.
I don't remember now how long it took. I loved the first volumes. I got stuck on the 2nd to last volume, Albertine disparue / The Fugitive, which took me 3 goes and about a year to finally get through. Then on to Le Temps Retrouvé / Time Regained which was marvellous again.
Lately I've been thinking it 's time to read it again ...
Other Proust-related books I've got are
- Sur la lecture which was originally a preface to a book by Ruskin.
- Proust contre la déchéance. Conférences au camp de Griazowietz, conferences given by Joseph Czapski to his fellow prisoners of war in Russia in 1940-41.
- La colombe poignardée : Proust et la « Recherche » by Pietro Citati.
The first time I went to the musée Carnavalet (museum of the history of Paris), I was happy to see the reconstruction of Proust's bedroom.
Gpfr wrote: "Bill wrote: "This got me to wondering how many readers here have read Proust. ..."Me. I read it in French.
I don't remember now how long it took. I loved the first volumes. I got stuck on the 2nd..."
i must read Proust and Czapski's book sounds fascinating, alongside his memoir of WW2, which is on my pile
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
The Shining (other topics)Danse Macabre (other topics)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (other topics)
11/22/63 (other topics)
The Thieves' Opera (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Stanley Elkin (other topics)John O'Hara (other topics)
Welcome to the new thread and to the last week of March.
I discovered when looking at last week's thread on the app on my phone, that photos don't show up. So, sorry if anyone is doing this and can't see them, but here are some more flowers.
Lots of good reading ahead, I hope, without further heating / hot water / car problems.