Sunday, May 31, 2009
Gray indeed ...
... John Gray: the poster boy for misanthropy. (Hat tip, Judith Fitzgerald.)
Gray, as we have seen, is not much interested in humanity, that plague on the planet as he calls us. ‘The single greatest threat to global ecological stability comes from human population growth’, he writes in ‘An Agenda for Green Conservatism’ (1992). A ‘crowded world choked with noise and filth’, he continues, will not only lead to ecological collapse but will deny ‘the human need for solitude and wilderness’.But why would someone who thinks of us a plague on the planet care about our need for solitude or wilderness? Sounds phony to me.
Forget it, Scotty ...
... The Future is an Empty Room. (Hat tip, Christpher Guerin.)
I doubt if the future will be quite this bleak. Books will become chic, like vinyl records. As for newspapers, the principal worry there will be what to wrap the fish and garbage in. Training puppies may be prove difficult as well.
Supreme peace ...
... while knowing how to kill with your bare hands. Bryan meets kung fu: Shaolin monks bring fighting ballet to UK. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Dark times ...
... How Bloody was Mary? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Bloody enough, I gather. But not exceptionally so, which is more frightening.
Bloody enough, I gather. But not exceptionally so, which is more frightening.
Sounds it to me ...
... Anthony Daniels on Raymond Tallis: Underrated. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... we should openly admit what we don't know rather than pretend to knowledge that we don't have. This is a less common attitude than it ought to be.
Honoring a master ...
... today is the bicentenary of Haydn's death: A Conservative Obligation: Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).
Today's Inquirer reviews ...
... David Marston on Michael Connelly: Murder and the struggling press.
... Karen Quiñones Miller on Coloson Whitehead: One teen's uncompelling summer of '85.
... David Hiltbrand looks at Murder set amid the world of hip-hop.
... and, in case you missed it yesterday, me on Robert Littell: The menace and terror of Stalin.
Also: Travel Bookshelf: Expert advice, quirky Parisian hotels.
... Karen Quiñones Miller on Coloson Whitehead: One teen's uncompelling summer of '85.
... David Hiltbrand looks at Murder set amid the world of hip-hop.
... and, in case you missed it yesterday, me on Robert Littell: The menace and terror of Stalin.
Also: Travel Bookshelf: Expert advice, quirky Parisian hotels.
Thought for the day ...
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.- Plato
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Virtually no blogging ...
... today. We are off to the Ironstone Sculpture Garden in a few minutes and won;t be back until much later, when we will just have time to eat and head out to orchestra. Blogging will resume when it resumes. Life calls.
Thought for the day ...
Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief.- Arthur Schnitzler
Friday, May 29, 2009
I missed this ...
... but I am, like Nige, a great admirer of Ross (after Wilde's trial, when he came of the court a crowd was in the street jeering him; Ross, however, raised he hat to him in salutation; quite a brave man): Robbie Ross.
I just got this ...
... and if you're in another time zone, you can still see it, I guess: Piers Paul Read on EWTN's "The World Over" tonight. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Terry times two ...
... Cross-country run (VI) and Shakespeare-style Stoppard.
I know of few serious plays that are as funny as “Arcadia,” and even fewer funny plays that are as serious.
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: Jane Austen editions, Spitting images, Eliot's pointers, and more.
I subscribe to the TLS. It is one of my more worthwhile expenditures.
I subscribe to the TLS. It is one of my more worthwhile expenditures.
Predispositon ...
... Science, the supernatural and searching for patterns. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What I find interesting about this is that, while we are predisposed to see patterns, whatever patterns are not in accord with reductive naturalism are always found to be wanting and that we must therefore strive to outgrow them. Determinism is fine as long as we are not determined to believe in God. Certainly, if one discerns a pattern and senses a force at work, the first question should be, "Is there such a pattern or force?" One should not immediately assume there isn't and go looking for something - anything - else. Come to think of it, what is biology but a complex of discerned patterns? And why is seeing the world and life in terms of those patterns superior to seeing them in terms of any other patterns?
Farther down ...
... Part Two - Revisiting Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD.
Here's my post linking to Part I (many comments): Literary discussion ...
Also, Dave Lull alerts me that R.T. has been noticed by the Washington Post: The Speed Read.
Here's my post linking to Part I (many comments): Literary discussion ...
Also, Dave Lull alerts me that R.T. has been noticed by the Washington Post: The Speed Read.
Thought for the day ...
You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we think.- Brother Lawrence
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The future of publishing (cont'd.) ...
... Book industry contemplates the future. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Inquirer discovers ...
... John O'Hara (maybe somebody read the piece I wrote for his centennial four years ago): Once a pariah, now a favorite son.
At least Clifford Geertz made the list...
TLS has its say on the most influential books since 1945...
It's hucksterish of me to post this, I know,
but look: the poet Eileen Tabios has reviewed my collection, Obsolete, in her online magazine Galatea Resurrects, A Poetry Engagement.
Literary discussion ...
Update: I'm bumping this post up because I want to add to it a quote from the article about E.M. Cioran that I linked to earlier today, since something Cioran said seem to me to have some bearing on the post-apocalyptic literature under discussion:
R.T. of Novels, Stories, and More and I have been exchanging emails regarding Cormac McCarthy's The Road - proof positive that two people can have widely divergent views of the same book and remain on speaking terms. R.T. has just posted PART ONE – Revisiting Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD.
“Annihilating flatters something obscure, something original in us. It is not by erecting but by pulverising that we may divine the secret satisfactions of a god. Whence the lure of destruction and the illusions it provokes among the frenzied of any era.”
R.T. of Novels, Stories, and More and I have been exchanging emails regarding Cormac McCarthy's The Road - proof positive that two people can have widely divergent views of the same book and remain on speaking terms. R.T. has just posted PART ONE – Revisiting Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD.
As I have already told R.T., I am open to having my mind changed about the book, but I think what will be most interesting is to see why we disagree, because I think that will lead, perhaps, to a better understanding of the book. It will certainly be fun for two people who love to read.
Inhabiting film ....
... Living, Though Not Sleeping With, Susan.
This was the time when AT&T, which legally owned your phone, would let you have one in any color as long as it was black. So tasteful people like Mark, or more likely the decorator he surely must have hired, bought colored plastic shells to fit over them. A large glass “window” decorated with Miro-like fi sh separates the apartment from the veranda. (When I was a kid growing up in dingy tenements in a small city in upstate New York, I would see places like this in movies and think, “That must be how real people live.”)
Another bad idea ...
... Year of Bible Push Is Misguided. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Just practice your faith and keep the government out of it. Geez.
Just practice your faith and keep the government out of it. Geez.
Novelist on the move ...
... The Master Takes a Tour. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Though he delights in France, Paris is "totally Americanized"; the Rue de la Paix turns out to be "a perfect reproduction of Broadway."
Danger man ...
... The trouble with being Cioran.
... what does Cioran offer us? An alternative, I would argue, to the shuffling and reshuffling of pieties, to the superficial investigations of language and politics, to the long academic boredom that has settled over philosophy.
Continuing correspondence ...
This post has been bumped, as the exchange has continued.
Piers Paul Read and I have resumed our email correspondence concerning his new novel, The Death of a Pope. (The initial exchange is here. And here is the website for the book.) Feel free to comment.
My last question was this:
FW: I have sometimes made the point in lectures that there is a creative dimension to reading: The reader must exercise his own imagination in order to realize what the author has written.
Piers Paul Read and I have resumed our email correspondence concerning his new novel, The Death of a Pope. (The initial exchange is here. And here is the website for the book.) Feel free to comment.
My last question was this:
FW: I have sometimes made the point in lectures that there is a creative dimension to reading: The reader must exercise his own imagination in order to realize what the author has written.
We seem to have imagined Monsignor Perez somewhat differently - or did I discern a sympathy that you may have been unaware of consciously? At any rate, I imagined Perez as a sad and somewhat lost soul, who at least has enough of a moral sense ... to have his confession heard by priest he knows is not a temporizer.
I even sensed a certain sad, lost quality to Doornik. I suppose what I am wondering is this: Do these characters affect the reader more sympathetically than you perhaps intended?
Uriarte, on the other hand, is definitely Luciferian as you say, which is what makes him such a compelling figure. Were your book to be made into a film, what a great role Uriarte would provide some actor (Benicio del Toro perhaps - he's already played Che Guevara, a far less interesting figure than Uriarte).We are the same age, so both of us remember when there was no "traditionalist" branch of the Church. That "branch" was the Church. The Death of a Pope portrays a Catholic Church that is not only at odds with the world, but also with itself in some sense. If this is a correct perception about the book, it would also seem to follow that the book is reminding us that forces are at work on behalf of the Church far greater than any individual, whether Pope or parishioner, can ever muster. Is this correct and if so, could you elaborate?
Here is Piers's reply:PPR: An author is always delighted if a reader takes a different view of his characters than he does himself because it suggests that he has given some sort of autonomous life to his characters. (It is the same when, in the course of writing a novel, the characters take off and do something that he had not intended.) Having said that, I would not disagree with what you say about Perez and Doornik. Both are Catholics who have dedicated their lives to the service of the Church but neither, I would suggest, are sufficiently aware of the subtlety and cunning of the Devil. This is where the sin of pride comes into play. Like Uriarte, but to a lesser degree, they feel they are called by God to do good, but must do something wrong to get into a position where they can do that good. The end justifies the means.
You are certainly right that the Church is greater than the sum of its parts and that there can be no question but that it will survive until `the end of time’. But it has gone through many crises – on thinks of the Arian heresy, for example. It is true that when we were young we were unaware of divisions within the Church but it was perhaps a lull both after and before two different storms – the Modernist crisis in the 19th century and what one might call the neo-Modernist crisis that followed Vatican II. It has led to much anguish and some loss of faith but, as you say, God does not abandon his bride. And, I would suggest, he does not abandon the successors of Peter: because while there are been Popes who are depraved, corrupt, worldly, cruel – there has never been a Pope so far as I know who has used his teaching authority to degrade doctrine. Pope Sergius III, perhaps the most depraved of all the Popes, authorized the foundation of the monastery at Cluny; and Pope Alexander VI, though he did not implement it, drew up a program for the reform of the Church. Both knew right from wrong.
FW: This brings to mind, for some reason, what Sister Elizabeth says to Father Luke at the conclusion of the retreat he gives the nuns: "It has been most instructive for our younger sisters to hear a voice from the past." Now, if there is any institution for which the past, in Faulkner's phrase "isn't even past," it's the Roman Catholic Church. But Sister Elizabeth seems typical of many in today's church is not seeming to understand that tradition is, as Chesterton put it, "a democracy of the dead," extending the franchise to our ancestors. Might one problem of people like Uriarte be that they are imprisoned in the present? Might the Devil be the supreme temporizer? Of course, many people, coming up this exchange, will think us strange for evil talking as we are about the Devil.
PPR: Didn't T.S. Eliot talk about temporal provincialism, and Chesterton say that one of the advantages of being a Catholic was that it saved one from being a child of one's time? Of course the Church talks about reading the signs of the times, and that is what many of the Liberationists thought they were doing. But their discernment, in my view, was wrong: and many people suffered as a result - both physically and spiritually.
FW: This brings to mind, for some reason, what Sister Elizabeth says to Father Luke at the conclusion of the retreat he gives the nuns: "It has been most instructive for our younger sisters to hear a voice from the past." Now, if there is any institution for which the past, in Faulkner's phrase "isn't even past," it's the Roman Catholic Church. But Sister Elizabeth seems typical of many in today's church is not seeming to understand that tradition is, as Chesterton put it, "a democracy of the dead," extending the franchise to our ancestors. Might one problem of people like Uriarte be that they are imprisoned in the present? Might the Devil be the supreme temporizer? Of course, many people, coming up this exchange, will think us strange for evil talking as we are about the Devil.
PPR: Didn't T.S. Eliot talk about temporal provincialism, and Chesterton say that one of the advantages of being a Catholic was that it saved one from being a child of one's time? Of course the Church talks about reading the signs of the times, and that is what many of the Liberationists thought they were doing. But their discernment, in my view, was wrong: and many people suffered as a result - both physically and spiritually.
Thought for the day ...
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Sonia Sotomayor and Nancy Drew
The girl detective inspires a nation. (Hat tip to David Seidman of Papercutz books.)
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Well, here's a classic ...
... for those too young to know, John Hartford wrote the song. Glen Campbell had the hit.
Florian Zeller and Milan Kundera
Florian Zeller can't close a book like Kundera (cut him a break, though, he's not yet thirty), but he certainly can write like him. Here, a few choice 'Kundera-moments' from Zeller's Lovers or something like it:
"...he had to bid farewell to a part of himself, his life as a libertine, and that seemed to him close to masochistic torture."
or
"Amelie was living under the despotic reign of her mother's grief."
Reading Lovers I swore on several occassions that I was in the middle of Laughter and Forgetting or Life is Elsewhere.
"...he had to bid farewell to a part of himself, his life as a libertine, and that seemed to him close to masochistic torture."
or
"Amelie was living under the despotic reign of her mother's grief."
Reading Lovers I swore on several occassions that I was in the middle of Laughter and Forgetting or Life is Elsewhere.
Planting forms ...
Last year Debbie and I went down to the Ironstone Sculpture Garden in Salem County, New Jersey. We'll be going again this weekend. It's open as part of the Arts in Bloom Festival, and is located at 218 Commissioners Pike. More information is here. The piece below is by David Tothero.
Punk's not dead!
Janine Bullman, who interviewed me last year for her research paper "An Exploration in the Evolution of Fanzines", has just published her first book, and I'm psyched. Punk Fiction is an anthology of short stories inspired by punk. Billy Childish, the author of my all-time favorite novel Notebooks of a Naked Youth, has a piece in it, and the Smiths' legendary guitarist Johnny Marr wrote the introduction. Fabulous.
Hear ye, hear ye ....
... Call for writers.
I don't know if the column I write for WFTC has done anything for anybody else - though I have received some nice comments - but I have found writing it a fruitful discipline.
Another long piece ...
... that I don't have time to be distracted by: In Defense of Distraction. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The link is fixed. Elberry is right that the one I mistakenly linked to was funny, but Dave didn't send it, and it wasn't long.
I did note this, though: "... conservative social critics have been blowing the apocalyptic bugle at every large-scale tech-driven social change since Socrates’ famous complaint about the memory-destroying properties of that newfangled technology called “writing.”
Socrates, famously put to death for "corrupting youth," was a conservative social critic? And all those newspaper people deploring blogs, they're all conservative social critics? Who knew?
The link is fixed. Elberry is right that the one I mistakenly linked to was funny, but Dave didn't send it, and it wasn't long.
I did note this, though: "... conservative social critics have been blowing the apocalyptic bugle at every large-scale tech-driven social change since Socrates’ famous complaint about the memory-destroying properties of that newfangled technology called “writing.”
Socrates, famously put to death for "corrupting youth," was a conservative social critic? And all those newspaper people deploring blogs, they're all conservative social critics? Who knew?
Vatican approved ...
... harmless entertainment. Unfortunately, a tad dull: Gail sees a movie: Angels and Demons.
Thought for the day ...
Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery.- Arthur Machen
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A beautiful talent ...
... such was Scott Fitzgerald's self-appraisal: GUEST ESSAY: REVISIONING "THE GREAT GATSBY" (I) and GUEST ESSAY: REVISIONING "THE GREAT GATSBY" (II). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Philly book scene ...
... Local Area Events.
I see that Luis Alberto Urrea is going to be at the Library on Thursday. I was on the jury that nominated his book The Devil's Highway for a Pulitzer (it lost to Steve Coll's Ghost Warriors). My erstwhile colleague David Hiltbrand heaped praise on Urrea's first novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter. Hope The Inquirer's reviewing his new one.
Mixed bag ...
... The book that changed my life. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)
I'm not sure if it changed my life, but Palgrave's Golden Treasury was an immense influence on me.
I'm not sure if it changed my life, but Palgrave's Golden Treasury was an immense influence on me.
Thought for the day ...
Suffering is nothing. It's all a matter of preventing those you love from suffering.— Alphonse Daudet
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thanks to elberry ...
... for this discovery: If Only The Rev. James McCosh Were Here!
This is a blog I shall be visiting often.
This is a blog I shall be visiting often.
A living faith ...
... My Last Cancer Treatment.
I had the strange, surreal experience of hearing my congregants' shock that this could happen to the family of the Rabbi -- as though professional piety was a shield against disease. As though God played favorites.
That epic sound ...
... An Old Norse Legend, Courtesy of J.R.R. Tolkien. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... Tolkien aimed for directness and authenticity. He did so by imitating poetic meters used by the early Norse—meters that (much like those in Old English) depend on alliteration (rather than rhyme) and a spacing of pauses and beats.
An ear for the bien-pensant ...
... Patrick Kurp on Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud by Robert Pinsky (editor). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hard to imagine how any editor of a poetry anthology aimed at reading aloud would miss Auden's "Miranda" ("My dear one is mine as mirrors are lonely ... And the high green hill sits always by the sea"). But, as Patrick notes, things like that happen when you let extra-literary concerns intrude.
Amen ...
... Faith in the future.
It is one thing to argue that the model of universal secularisation is mistaken, and to show – as the authors do very effectively – that the decline of religion in Europe is not going to be repeated worldwide. It is another thing altogether to suggest that an American kind of religiosity is spreading nearly everywhere.
One problem is the conception of religion the authors deploy.
Nearly always, religion for them means monotheism – more specifically, Christianity and Islam. Polytheistic and non-theistic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism are allowed a few pages, but only in order to argue that “American methods can work” even for them.
I have at times been critical of John Gray, but this is an excellent, well-balanced review. I have always thought it interesting that secularists should find America's persistent religiosity peculiar, given that so many of its colonies were established for religious reasons. Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman may not have been conventional churchgoers, but they sure were religious. Also, with its veneration of saints, Catholicism is much more compatible with polytheism than Evangelical Protestantism. My neighborhood has lately been graced with a large number of immigrants from Mexico. Their religiosity may not be conventionally American, either, but it is genuine and deep. Our Lady of Guadalupe rules. Gray hits the bull's-eye with this:
God is Back may not show that the American way of religion is uniquely well suited to the modern condition. Where this urgently relevant book succeeds triumphantly is in demolishing the myth of an emerging secular civilisation.
Thought for the day ...
Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.- Henry Miller
Sunday, May 24, 2009
On the road ...
... with Bryan: Stoke the Vile.
Listening to the Byrds will do that to you. I think their version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" is blasphemy.
Something different ...
... here's my review of Piers Paul Read's The Death of a Pope: A complex thriller converging on Rome.
I have been exchanging emails with Piers Paul Read about this book (an exchange begun after I had written my review) and he has agreed to let me reproduce it here. What follows is just the beginning:
I found this rather heartening, since many people seem to be always on the lookout for some hero to do God's work, whereas God is fully capable of doing His own work using the people who come to hand, as it were.
I have been exchanging emails with Piers Paul Read about this book (an exchange begun after I had written my review) and he has agreed to let me reproduce it here. What follows is just the beginning:
FW: Among the many things I found interesting about the book is how attractive and persuasive Juan Uriarte is. This reminded me of how good Aquinas is at presenting the arguments of those he does not in fact agree with. To do this you have to enter deeply - and sympathetically - into the other's position.
On the other hand, those in the novel who prove to be the instruments of God's providence and thwart Uriarte's scheme - Luke Scott and Monsignor Perez - display nothing of Uriarte's charisma or subtlety.I found this rather heartening, since many people seem to be always on the lookout for some hero to do God's work, whereas God is fully capable of doing His own work using the people who come to hand, as it were.
So one question, obviously, is this: You must have gone into the idea of of the social gospel rather deeply - and sympathetically. And yet remain or have come to be suspicious of it. Would you care to explain?
PPR: When I was a student at Cambridge I was a zealous Liberationist - partly influenced by some very radical Dominicans at the Cambridge Blackfriars. There was a Catholic Liberationist review called Slant. The view was that you could only help the poor in the Third world with social revolution. I changed my views in later years because 1) I lived for a while in Berlin and saw socialism in practice on the eastern side of the wall 2) studied more history and came to understand that revolutionaries usually turn out to be self-serving and 3) deepened my understanding of the Catholic faith, realising that it was more about saving souls than social welfare. I also went out to Salvador on a journalistic project and heard the criticism of the FMLN and the Jesuits from the 'traditional' clergy there - views which never got through to the Catholic journals in Britain.
But certainly, Uriarte represents to some extent my youthful self and the novel is a debate between the older and one hopes wiser author and his that youthful self.
FW: Well, in the novel you not only present a very appealing picture of Uriarte - it is only toward the end that what we might call his charming ruthlessness starts to show - but you also present a good man - Father Luke - who doesn't seem to have any of what it takes to counter a guy like Uriarte. He's too gentle, too kind and loving. And Father Luke seems to know he's no match for Uriarte. He really doesn't even try to argue with Kate over Uriarte, because he knows it will do no good. And yet, in the long run, Father Luke is pivotal to the novel's resolution. That deeper understanding of Catholicism that you just mentioned, might it have something to do with our being instruments of God, in contrast to the sort of movers and shakers the liberationist theologians would have us be?
PPR: Yes. What I now believe is that Catholicism is not an ideology but an openess to the grace of God so that it is not me but Christ in me, as Saint Paul puts it. Father Luke is discouraged, I think, by the way in which Kate has succumbed to the worldly values of the zeitgeist but I trust that his role in the denoument shows that his love is far superior to that of Uriarte. I hope to convey by Kate's tears at the very end of the novel that she has come to understand this and is on the way to conversion.
FW: I did feel at the end, when Kate cries, that she does on some level "get it." This morning, at Mass, I kept thinking for some reason of Monsignor Perez. He is vain - very preoccupied with the details of ecclesiastical preferment. And yet he has a sincere and simple faith that prompts him to set in motion a chain of events that will thwart evil.
Then there is Cardinal Doornik - who would never have assented to what Uriarte really has in mind - but who can wrap his conscience around breaking a vow ... for what he perceives to be a higher good. Doornik shares with the good people in the book their imperfections, though unlike the others he cannot rise above them.
Uriarte is different from all of the rest. He is so smooth, so self-possessed and self-confidant. He has indeed achieved a kind of bloodless perfection. Somerset Maugham says somewhere that perfection is a trifle dull. In Uriarte you have created a character who leads one to think that perfection can also be more than a trifle menacing.
So how would you describe the moral divide separating Uriarte from the others?
PPR: Is there such a great moral divide between Uriarte and Cardina Doornik and Monsignor Perez? I would have thought they were all united in the sin of pride. Uriarte is ahead of the others - a Luciferian figure - and, despite their basically good intentions, he pulls them down in
his wake. The most neglected virtues these days, it seems to me, are humility and chastity. I have tried to suggest that it is a hatred of chastity as well as pride that motivates Uriarte, something Kate realises towards the end of the novel.
FW: I have sometimes made the point in lectures that there is a creative dimension to reading: The reader must exercise his own imagination in order to realize what the author has written.
We seem to have imagined Monsignor Perez somewhat differently - or did I discern a sympathy that you may have been unaware of consciously? At any rate, I imagined Perez as a sad and somewhat lost soul, who at least has enough of a moral sense ... to have his confession heard by priest he knows is not a temporizer.
I even sensed a certain sad, lost quality to Doornik. I suppose what I amn wondering is this: Do these characters affect the reader more sympathetically than you perhaps intended?
Uriarte, on the other hand, is definitely Luciferian as you say, which is what makes him such a compelling figure. Were your book to be made into a film, what a great role Uriarte would provide some actor (Benicio del Toro perhaps - he's already played Che Guevara, a far less interesting figure than Uriarte).
We are the same age, so both of us remember when there was no "traditionalist" branch of the Church. That "branch" was the Church. The Death of a Pope portrays a Catholic Church that is not only at odds with the world, but also with itself in some sense. If this is a correct perception about the book, it would also seem to follow that the book is reminding us that forces are at work on behalf of the Church far greater than any individual, whether Pope or parishioner, can
ever muster. Is this correct and if so, could you elaborate?
This is where we are so far. I will continue to update and bump the post up.
FW: I did feel at the end, when Kate cries, that she does on some level "get it." This morning, at Mass, I kept thinking for some reason of Monsignor Perez. He is vain - very preoccupied with the details of ecclesiastical preferment. And yet he has a sincere and simple faith that prompts him to set in motion a chain of events that will thwart evil.
Then there is Cardinal Doornik - who would never have assented to what Uriarte really has in mind - but who can wrap his conscience around breaking a vow ... for what he perceives to be a higher good. Doornik shares with the good people in the book their imperfections, though unlike the others he cannot rise above them.
Uriarte is different from all of the rest. He is so smooth, so self-possessed and self-confidant. He has indeed achieved a kind of bloodless perfection. Somerset Maugham says somewhere that perfection is a trifle dull. In Uriarte you have created a character who leads one to think that perfection can also be more than a trifle menacing.
So how would you describe the moral divide separating Uriarte from the others?
PPR: Is there such a great moral divide between Uriarte and Cardina Doornik and Monsignor Perez? I would have thought they were all united in the sin of pride. Uriarte is ahead of the others - a Luciferian figure - and, despite their basically good intentions, he pulls them down in
his wake. The most neglected virtues these days, it seems to me, are humility and chastity. I have tried to suggest that it is a hatred of chastity as well as pride that motivates Uriarte, something Kate realises towards the end of the novel.
FW: I have sometimes made the point in lectures that there is a creative dimension to reading: The reader must exercise his own imagination in order to realize what the author has written.
We seem to have imagined Monsignor Perez somewhat differently - or did I discern a sympathy that you may have been unaware of consciously? At any rate, I imagined Perez as a sad and somewhat lost soul, who at least has enough of a moral sense ... to have his confession heard by priest he knows is not a temporizer.
I even sensed a certain sad, lost quality to Doornik. I suppose what I amn wondering is this: Do these characters affect the reader more sympathetically than you perhaps intended?
Uriarte, on the other hand, is definitely Luciferian as you say, which is what makes him such a compelling figure. Were your book to be made into a film, what a great role Uriarte would provide some actor (Benicio del Toro perhaps - he's already played Che Guevara, a far less interesting figure than Uriarte).
We are the same age, so both of us remember when there was no "traditionalist" branch of the Church. That "branch" was the Church. The Death of a Pope portrays a Catholic Church that is not only at odds with the world, but also with itself in some sense. If this is a correct perception about the book, it would also seem to follow that the book is reminding us that forces are at work on behalf of the Church far greater than any individual, whether Pope or parishioner, can
ever muster. Is this correct and if so, could you elaborate?
This is where we are so far. I will continue to update and bump the post up.
Whew ....
... The Solipsist and the Internet (a review of Helprin’s Digital Barbarism). (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
This sure is long.
This sure is long.
Trumpets, drums, and applause ...
... and congratulations to Desert Moon Review: Poem of the Year: May 2008-Apr 2009. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Florian Zeller
I cannot remember the last time I was so transfixed by a book.
I take my hat off to Florian Zeller. Artificial Snow is astounding.
I take my hat off to Florian Zeller. Artificial Snow is astounding.
There's a wonderful piece
in the Atlantic this month about a 72-year-old longitudinal study of a group of men and the way their lives have unfolded.
Today's Inquirer reviews ...
... 'Road Dogs' is vintage Leonard. Indeed it is.
... A star, his foibles, and his flaws.
... From war to noir, and it's a wild ride.
... Susan Balée on Colm Tóibín: Homesick in a new world.
I have a review in today's paper also, but am linking to it separately.
... A star, his foibles, and his flaws.
... From war to noir, and it's a wild ride.
... Susan Balée on Colm Tóibín: Homesick in a new world.
I have a review in today's paper also, but am linking to it separately.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Minority report ...
... Will Shakespeare's Come and Gone: Does the Bard's Poetry Reach Us Like August Wilson's? Come On--Really? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
There is a simpler solution: Teach Shakespeare better. I have no trouble with Polonius's speech to Laertes, or with the passage from Chaucer (I have lately been re-reading The Canterbury Tales - and yes, in Middle English, which really isn't hard).
Catching up ...
... with Maxine:
... Overheard on a train from Lords of the Blog. (Now if Maxine wanted to write a mystery novel, there's a good opening gambit.)
... introducing Ercument Buyuksumnulu. I much prefer Maxine.
... Richard and Judy and other sales figures.
... British Library offers test drive of e-readers. Wait for the Kindle.
... A CrimeFest round-up.
... Overheard on a train from Lords of the Blog. (Now if Maxine wanted to write a mystery novel, there's a good opening gambit.)
... introducing Ercument Buyuksumnulu. I much prefer Maxine.
... Richard and Judy and other sales figures.
... British Library offers test drive of e-readers. Wait for the Kindle.
... A CrimeFest round-up.
A free press ...
... is so important to democracy: DOJ, to Newspaper: Shape Up, or Ship Out.
Of course, if the government helps bail out the newspaper industry, we won't have anything to worry about, right?
Of course, if the government helps bail out the newspaper industry, we won't have anything to worry about, right?
He's better than that ...
... Why Donald Duck Is the Jerry Lewis of Germany. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
When I was little kid, I loved the Donald Duck comics. Mickey Mouse was usually solving a crime, but Donald and his nephews were usually off on an adventure - something to do with the Vikings or a search the seven cities of Cibola.
Knowing ...
... and not knowing: A Century of Looking the Other Way. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This brings to mind how enmity can forge a peculiar identification with the other. The Irish Catholic Church became a grotesque parody of its nemesis: Protestant Puritanism. I was educated mostly by a French order of nuns (the Religious of the Sacred Heart). The difference between my experience and those of friends of mine taught by other orders of mostly Irish nuns is startling. The Irish Church seems to have saved the Bark of Peter by tossing love overboard.
Some may find interesting what I had to say a few years regarding the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia: Toll the bell, close the book, quench the candle ...
Post bumped.
Some may find interesting what I had to say a few years regarding the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia: Toll the bell, close the book, quench the candle ...
Post bumped.
Partial recall ...
... By Heart.
That is what hooks us on poetry - that discovery that words can be music. I can still recite the poems I have always known and I can still memorize poems with comparative ease. It bothers me that don't bother to do so more.I remember astounding my parents, when I was I suppose 8, by memorising the lengthy narrative poem Edinburgh After Flodden (by W.E. Aytoun), of which I understood very little - it was the music I was memorising (as when I learnt the prologue to Henry V at a similarly precocious age).
Ahead of its time ...
... Sarah Weinman points out that Ambler’s ‘A Coffin for Dimitrios’ was postmodern in 1939. (Tips of the hat to Dave Lull and Paul Davis.)
Progress report ...
... Karen Heller: Creative juices, coming to a boil. (Hat tip, Dave Lull. I hope Karen realizes what an important day in her life this is - the day she came to the attention of the Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian.)
I met Shawn McBride after a reading once. We did, of course, attend the same high school. And I meant what I said about his book.
I met Shawn McBride after a reading once. We did, of course, attend the same high school. And I meant what I said about his book.
What passes for science ...
... Early human ate young Neanderthal: study.
The single fact in this story is the jawbone. Beyond that it is all speculation - whether the child was murdered or not, whether the child was a Neanderthal or a modern human with Neanderthal characteristics, the business about an environmental crisis. All these scientists should be made to stand and repeat after me, "We don't know." Now that wasn't so hard, was it?
Thought for the day ...
The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.- Anatole France
Friday, May 22, 2009
I'm not so sure ...
... 15 long minutes.
I certainly don't think one should seek to be admired. But I'm not sure one should seek to be loved, either. Nice if it happens, of course. What is important is learning to love, which can often mean the acceptance of not being loved in return.
I certainly don't think one should seek to be admired. But I'm not sure one should seek to be loved, either. Nice if it happens, of course. What is important is learning to love, which can often mean the acceptance of not being loved in return.
A perfectly lovely review ...
... Juian Barnes on John Updike: Flights. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is, perhaps, the underlying, paradoxical dream of Updike's characters: to be away, and yet to be safe.
Disingenuous ...
... Why is Charlotte Allen so mad at atheists? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I notice that Myers does not address this part of Allen's piece:
But he does say this:
I notice that Myers does not address this part of Allen's piece:
Then there's P.Z. Myers, biology professor at the University of Minnesota's Morris campus, whose blog, Pharyngula, is supposedly about Myers' field, evolutionary biology, but is actually about his fanatical propensity to label religious believers as "idiots," "morons," "loony" or "imbecilic" in nearly every post. The university deactivated its link to Myers' blog in July after he posted a photo of a consecrated host from a Mass that he had pierced with a rusty nail and thrown into the garbage ("I hope Jesus' tetanus shots are up to date") in an effort to prove that Catholicism is bunk -- or something.
But he does say this:
Contrary to Allen's claim that we aren't interested in criticizing the important elements of religious belief, we are: We go right to the central issue of whether there is a god or not. We're pretty certain that if there were an all-powerful being pulling the strings and shaping history for the benefit of human beings, the universe would look rather different than it does. It wouldn't be a place almost entirely inimical to our existence, with a history that reveals our existence was a fortunate result of a long chain of accidents tuned by natural selection.I, however, as a person of faith, do not thing of God as "pulling the strings." That's a parodistic notion of God. And given how finely tuned the world is to make itself accommodating to us it is hard to regard it as "a place almost entirely inimical to our existence." But then Myers is a biologist, not a philosopher.
Not always right ...
... Mortal Remains: The wisdom and folly in Albert Jay Nock’s anti-statism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Nock understood that man is lazy, which is not quite the same as slothful. He called this “Epstean’s Law” after a friend who’d said to him over lunch: “I tell you, if self-preservation is the first law of human conduct, exploitation is the second.” Or as Nock rephrased it: “Man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.” And for Nock, the state is the foremost instrument of Epstean’s Law, allowing powerful men to feed off the creativity, productivity, and labor of others under the veneer of legalisms. Every state, according to Nock, was born in conquest and exploitation. In other words, the state “claims and exercises the monopoly of crime.” This is why Nock had such contempt for businessmen claiming the language of free enterprise even as they petitioned and cajoled the state into rigging the system in their favor: “The simple truth is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government they can use.”In 1968, during my Goliard days, I gave a lecture on Nock at Rockford College. I have been a fan since my early 20s and have, right behind, a shelf with most of his books on it. This is a fair and balanced appraisal. Nock's quietism is indeed as dubious as it is tempting.
It has my vote ...
... Is Tom Stoppard's Arcadia the greatest play of our age? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
My late-life fascination with the probable impossibility of being certain of anything has caused me to take increasing pleasure in knowing (for sure?) that my understanding of things must always be not only incomplete but marginal, even minuscule. The pleasure comes from sensing how vast the unknown is and how inexhaustible the world is.
Thought for the day ...
Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.- Colette
Masterpiece at noon ...
... 400 years young: The magic and mystery of Shakespeare's Sonnets. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Have to admit: The dude looks cool in those shades.
Have to admit: The dude looks cool in those shades.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Vintage news ...
... Times Archive Blog: Blogging 200 years of history from 1785-1985. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: The Spanish Civil War, A jury of her peers, Gallery Press, and more.
Two step ...
... First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, maybe ...
... The Consolations of Pessimism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It seems to me there's been plenty of doom-and-gloom on display these past few years. The environmentalists alone could spark a boom in sackcloth and ashes. And, while it may be wise not to be unduly optimistic, we would also do well to remind ourselves of something Colette said: " ... there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering." Or, as roofer Ray Nocella just remarked to me, "Suffering should be a hobby, not an occupation."
Zines in public libraries:
the latest installment in the Library Journal column about zines. (Thanks to Dave Lull for sending me this link.)
A teaser ...
... Doubting Dawkins: An Excerpt from Why There Almost Certainly Is a God.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Keith Ward is always a delight to read.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Keith Ward is always a delight to read.
Thought for the day ...
Who breathe where you will, come into me and snatch me up to yourself.- Richard Rolle
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Radical detachment ...
... Disturbances of Peace. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
There is something unmistakably late twentieth century in Hinton's love for Tao and Ch'an, and in his way with it. Sometimes he overly domesticates this ancient wisdom, making it sound like a familiar form of progressive orthodoxy, as when he congratulates Taoism for being "deeply ogical" and "radically feminist." As with Rexroth, these Chinese poets can sound distinctly New Age. Just as often, though, Hinton makes the Chinese poets sound like late Heidegger, as when he writes of their interest in "dwelling," or translates the central Taoist concept tzu-jan as "occurrence appearing of itself," echoing Heidegger's translation of the Greek physis as "things ... insofar as they originate and come forth from themselves."
This is also my one reservation about Hinton's presentation of Chinese poetry. Lao-tse relates better to Heraclitus than to Heidegger. And it is unfair these poets to use their work on behalf of any contemporary ideology.
First the rad trads ...
... now the radical orthodox. Look out: Lazarus-style comeback. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Literary encounter ...
... WISE BLOOD - An Autobiographical Criticism (Part Two).
This is what reading is all about - a passionate encounter that enables you to come to know yourself in relation to the world.
This is what reading is all about - a passionate encounter that enables you to come to know yourself in relation to the world.
Cool ...
... George Meredith's Shed.
Further encouraging words from Nige: Part of the Past - At Last!
"... a dedicated retroprogressive reactionary laudator temporis acti." The only way to be!
Further encouraging words from Nige: Part of the Past - At Last!
"... a dedicated retroprogressive reactionary laudator temporis acti." The only way to be!
Word from Judith ...
... Time to toot the bottoms-up horn.
... BION, Derek Walcott's still smokin' hot.
... Take this job and . . .
Interesting to see how elevated and graceful literary politics can be.
... BION, Derek Walcott's still smokin' hot.
... Take this job and . . .
Interesting to see how elevated and graceful literary politics can be.
The darkly comic heart ...
... Preacher Problems: John Huston and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Somebody should send Richard Dawkins a copy.
Somebody should send Richard Dawkins a copy.
What a smart fellow ...
In a recent interview with Trina Hoaks, the atheist blogger for the Examiner.com website, [Richard] Dawkins described religious believers as follows: “They feel uneducated, which they are; often rather stupid, which they are; inferior, which they are; and paranoid about pointy-headed intellectuals from the East Coast looking down on them, which, with some justification, they do.”
That's from a piece that I linked to earlier here. I just saw it quoted again, though, and it occurred to me to wonder exactly how it is that Professor Dawkins knows how other people - especially people he doesn't know - feel. It would also seem that that final they would necessarily refer to the immediately preceding them, whereas I think the good professor actually is referring to the pointy-heads (who would be doing the looking down). Speaking for myself as just one believer, I have never felt uneducated or stupid or inferior and certainly not paranoid about an ungrammatical mind-reader looking down on me. I think he's rather funny.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The future of publishing (cont'd.) ...
... Site Lets Writers Sell Digital Copies. (Hat tip, Judith Fitzgerald.)
The future of publishing (cont'd.) ...
... Number of On-demand Titles Topped Traditional Books in 2008. (Hat tip, Roger Miller.)
The Ballad of Thoreau
The stage play is now a film to be shown on public television stations. Anyone seen it? I haven't, but it looks interesting.
The future of publishing (cont'd.) ...
... Finding Indie Opportunity on The Kindle. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Conspicuous display ...
... The Peacock Problem. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Members of the same sex compete with one another for the best (or the most) mates, and competition favors those who can signal their superiority over their opponents. The most famous example of such a signal is the peacock’s tail, whose extravagance distinguishes its owner from less showy birds and functions as a fitness indicator, proclaiming his health and strength to potential female partners.How do we know that that is what the peahen sees in the peacock's tail? Aren't all peacocks' tails much the same? Or is the peahen able to differentiate subtleties not readily observable by us. If so, how do we know that? Is it not possible that the peacock's splendor is meant to the draw attention of a predator away from the peahen and her nest?
Artistic ability, Dutton concludes, signals exceptional intelligence, wit, wisdom, dexterity, imaginativeness, and the rest of the qualities that (health and attractiveness aside) proclaim their owners’ superiority ...There are plenty of artists who, apart from their specialized talent and skill, are not especially bright or witty or wise or exceptional in any other way.
Better known ...
... than you suspect, Roger: Pajama’d Life on the Mississippi.
Last Thursday night, at the Free Library, Elmore spoke appreciatively of Richard Bissell and 7½ Cents. He even cited Bissell as something of an influence.
Last Thursday night, at the Free Library, Elmore spoke appreciatively of Richard Bissell and 7½ Cents. He even cited Bissell as something of an influence.
Calling all droogies ...
.... A Clockwork Burgess (1962).
I have my doubts about Roger Lewis and I am not alone. See this Review by Tim Conley. ("... Lewis at work here is like nothing so much as an adolescent publicly masturbating on the exhumed corpse of his father, and thinking this performance the acme of wit.")
One more time ...
... God Talk, Part 2. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... the epistemological critique of religion — it is an inferior way of knowing — is the flip side of a naïve and untenable positivism. And the critique of religion’s content — it’s cotton-candy fluff — is the product of incredible ignorance.
Thought for the day ...
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.- Walter Bagehot
Monday, May 18, 2009
Catherine Millet
I've just finished The Sexual Life of Catherine M. and I have to say - I think the critics got this book all wrong. With the exception of its concluding chapter ('Details'), The Sexual Life is erotica - plain and simple. Sure, it's written by a European intellectual, but still: this is no Cancer, no Capricorn. To suggest - as some critics have - that the memoir owes its power to "Proustian" overtones is ridiculous. Had Millet's name been removed from the title page, critics, I'm sure, would have thought twice before praising (what one eager prophet labeled) its "miraculous grace." I'd take the work of Miller or Nin over The Sexual Life of Catherine M. any day of the week - and that's not because I disliked the book: it's more that shock value can only get a writer so far, and by the end of Sexual Life, all the sex seemed to blur into nothing.Plus ça change …
... Something New Under the Sun. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"Fine ladies, men of fashion – the London world – ever anxious to make as much of its money as it can, and then wholly unwise (it is not now very wise) in discovering how the most was to be made of it – ‘went in’ and speculated largely. As usual, all was favourable so long as the shares were rising; the price was at one time very high, and the agitation very general. After a time, the shares ‘hesitated,’ declined, and fell; and there was an outcry against everybody concerned in the matter."
Poet on poet ...
Christopher Logue on John Dryden. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I've always loved the part of MacFlecknoe when the kind of dullness decides who shall be his successor:
I've always loved the part of MacFlecknoe when the kind of dullness decides who shall be his successor:
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears.
Mature in dullness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Leaps of faith ...
... or doubt: Life, the multiverse and everything. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Evidence is what eventually settles science. But in the meantime, one should also be wary of sleights of hand. The multiverse is a hypothesis for which there is no evidence, and perhaps can never be any evidence.So, if there is no evidence yet, it is not yet science.
Thought for the day ...
Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.- Anton Chekhov
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Happy birthday ...
... Faber and Faber, home of Larkin, Plath, Hughes and Stoppard, turns 80. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Some links ...
... from Maxine:
... The International World of Blogging.
... News from Crime Fest - quiz, Colin Dexter.
... A Few Timely Links.
... The International World of Blogging.
... News from Crime Fest - quiz, Colin Dexter.
... A Few Timely Links.
Blogging has been sporadic ...
... for a number of reasons, among them my having to restore a semblance of order to my home office and ever-growing number of books. I will have more to say this anon. For now I just want to mention that while putting some books away I happened upon Edith Sitwell's Collected Poems and pausing to look through it I came at once upon this, the opening lines of 'Lo, this is she that was the world's desire':
I think these lines are wonderful. It was a blessing to have come upon them as I did.
In the green winter night
That is dark as the cypress bough, the pine,
The fig-tree and the vine
When our long sun into the dark had set
And made but winter branches of his rays,
The heart, a ghost,
Said to our life farewell—the shadow leaves
The body when our long dark sun has gone ...
No Luddite he ...
... Break free of this world wide delusion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It is the cultists who threaten the web. They are the ones encouraging dreams of a utopia of the self.
Indeed. I haven't got involved with Twitter or Facebook or other such things. I've always been the standoffish type who watches what's going on from a safe distance. The web has always seemed to me a kind of enhanced phone line. Still, I think the flip side of the cult of the self Bryan has correctly warns about is the connection that can be made with so many kindred spirits around the world. But for the internet I would not have come to know Dave and Judith and Nige and Maxine - and Bryan himself, to mention only a few. This ability of individuals to connect with others globally has a potential I don't think of any of us can yet fathom.
Indeed. I haven't got involved with Twitter or Facebook or other such things. I've always been the standoffish type who watches what's going on from a safe distance. The web has always seemed to me a kind of enhanced phone line. Still, I think the flip side of the cult of the self Bryan has correctly warns about is the connection that can be made with so many kindred spirits around the world. But for the internet I would not have come to know Dave and Judith and Nige and Maxine - and Bryan himself, to mention only a few. This ability of individuals to connect with others globally has a potential I don't think of any of us can yet fathom.
This seems about right ...
... Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Link is fixed.What primarily seems to motivate atheists isn't rationalism but anger -- anger that the world isn't perfect, that someone forced them to go to church as children, that the Bible contains apparent contradictions, that human beings can be hypocrites and commit crimes in the name of faith.
One does encounter a good many atheists who seem to have some vendetta against somebody who force fed them religion when they were kids. But being force fed doesn't mean food is bad for you.
Scary ...
... An unwelcome lesson in learning to die.
The Australian aborigines, I believe, regard dream time as governing our lives. I don't have much of a dream life myself, so I can't say.As I brewed the tea, I wondered whether the dream time was more real than the day time I'm in now.
Today's Inquirer reviews ...
... An inside scoop on talk radio. (People all over the world have been waiting for this, I'm sure. I doubt if Smerconish's "suburban manifesto" will prove anywhere near the draw as Mark Levin's "conservative" one. Then again, Levin doesn't write for The Inquirer.)
... Exploring the life of Garcia Marquez. (I remember an interview where Garcia Marquez explained that his friendship with Fidel Castro was entirely based on their mutual love of fishing and fish recipes. As someone who has never criticized Fidel's bouillabaise, I quite understand.)
... Breezy bits of history's sound bites. (Proof, if any was needed, that the New Deal is the nearest many reporters can come to believing in eternal life.)
... Exploring the life of Garcia Marquez. (I remember an interview where Garcia Marquez explained that his friendship with Fidel Castro was entirely based on their mutual love of fishing and fish recipes. As someone who has never criticized Fidel's bouillabaise, I quite understand.)
... Breezy bits of history's sound bites. (Proof, if any was needed, that the New Deal is the nearest many reporters can come to believing in eternal life.)
Thought for the day ...
Welcome to the world of light made lapidary,
shades of pale slate casting tender cerulean hues
variously cobalt basalt, indigo outerglow, slow-dawning
blues. Accept this delicate hypnotopia lovingly rendered
for the singular Individual in that malltitudinous queue.- Judith Fitzgerald
Saturday, May 16, 2009
I'm late getting to this ...
... but it is excellent (no surprise there): Apocalypse now. Is the end of the world nigh?
Bryan, as we all know, has some apocalyptic tendencies of his own. You'd never know it from this review, which is what makes Bryan such a great journalist. Like mon semblable, mon frère Nige I am increasingly skeptical of the global warming prophets (I used to be just agnostic). But I can go along with what Overy says. I already have a daintier carbon footprint than the bloviating Gore, and always have. To begin with, I don't drive. And I certainly don't fly on private jets. Or have a huge houseboat.
Sign me up for the "sceptical party," please.
Overy left the Labour party in 1997, when Blair was elected prime minister, and now describes himself as a nonaligned member of the (nonexistent) sceptical party. His central political position — which is not really right or left — is that we need to resist the overweening claims of the state.
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: The Spanish Civil War, Spitting images, Scientific lexis, and more.