Lost and found …

… R.R. Tolkien's Lost Christmas Poem (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Eugenio Montale "People talk and talk more …"

In case you wondered …

… Hemingway On Giving Advice

A poem for this morning …

… Sonnet: Barbara Loots, ‘An Old Man Makes Chili for Lunch (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Oh, really.

……‘We are the free world now’ — Europe declares war on free speech in the US Well, maybe Bill and Hillary should move to Europe. i think most Americans would prefer to keep our freedoms. i know i would.

A poem for this morning …

… Edwin Denby — Standing on the Streetcorner

A poem for this morning …

… Jim Powe — lHeat

A poem for this morning …

… Jim Powell — Heat

A poem for this morning …

… In the Bleak Midwinter (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Fir the season …

… THE QUIET PRESIDENT WHO STARTED 2 LASTING CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Yusef Komunyakaa — Night of the Armadillo

A poem for this morning …

… Mistletoe (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Great cause for concern

… The West’s complacency over censorship ( Hat tip,Dave Lull)

Help wanted …

… Santa needs new reindeer

A poem for this morning …

… Raúl Zurita — The Pacific Is the Sky

Worth noting …

… … William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure

Christian Kracht

 

Eurotrash -- Christian Kracht's novel of wealth, history, and guilt -- was not one that was known to me, but, enticed by its absurd cover, I took a chance. In some ways, Eurotrash is a successful book: its characters wrestle with tainted inheritance, with disturbing family associations, and with the question, ultimately, of when events transition to the broader realm of history. Eurotrash focuses on two characters -- a mother and son -- neither of whom is particularly well developed, but who function as types, as representations of wealth, or struggles against it. Parts of Eurotrash are effective, especially those focused on inherited guilt. But even those sections of the novel felt, to a certain extent, incomplete: it's one thing to cast a portion of a character's family as having been Nazis, or having benefited from the Nazi regime; but it's another to develop that story, and to trace its complexity into the present. It's not that Kracht has delivered an ineffective rendering of European wealth; instead, it's that he's delivered an incomplete novel, one that's propped up by dialogue, but which reads, at times, as shallow. Had this book been double the length, and had its characters succeeded in donating their tainted wealth, then maybe there might have been something profound to address; but that does not happen exactly, and the result -- for me, at least -- is a novel in search of itself, a book with solid scaffolding, but without the guts to call it complete.

Poetry and life …

… Embedding the Cancer Port

A poem for this morning …

… Siri Hustvedt — Weather Markings

Remembering a master …

… A centennial look back at Edward Gorey’s macabre art and guarded life

A poem for this morning…

… Poem for a Monday morning in winter

Anothrr poem for today …

… Honorary Jew

Honoring the day …

… Poem for this special Sunday

Indeed it is …

… 100 years on, T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men is a poem for our populist moment This is an insightful commentary.

A poem for today …

… Ghalib — Some Exaggerations

RIP …

…John Carey obituary: literary critic (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

In case you wondered …

… The Economic Roots of Grade Inflation At the Jesuit college I attended in the early 1960s there no grade inflation.

Among things deemed needful …

… The Need of Being Versed in Country Things

‘Tis the season …

… A Christmas Carol by Christina Rossetti

Plus ça change …

… Is Everything Always Continuously Changing in Every Respect?

A poem for this morning …

… James Schuyler — Linen

Just what we don’t need …

… 14 Colleges Get Fs in '25 StopAntisemitism Report Card

Benjamin Labatut

At its core, When We Cease to Understand the World is a work of fiction. Its author, Benjamin Labatut, dramatizes a set of mathematical discoveries, imagining himself into the lives of the figures whose research and eccentricities led to those discoveries. Cease to Understand functions as a novel, but it is one which straddles a very fine line. And it does this magnificently. 

When Labatut introduces the impact, say, of Heisenberg, he does this not only by way of discoveries and theories, but through a set of relationships and events. Labatut claims that the amount of 'fiction' in this book increases over time, and that the early stories are more faithful to documented events than those later in the collection. But that does not really account for what's going on here: because, in all cases, in all stories, Labatut introduces a fictional arc; he traces relationships, personalities, families. He adds to this with periodic dialogue -- even with descriptions of the weather, of the geography. 

The result is a book reminiscent in its the style and orientation of W. G. Sebald, whose own novels sit in that unusual space between the real and the imagined, between history and fiction. When Labatut presents the discoveries of Haber or Schrödinger, for instance, he does so as a novelist might: it is the events which lead to the discovery that matter; it is the isolation, the struggle, the malnourishment which, in some sense, become the discovery, the revelation. Had Labatut included pictures, his book would have veered even closer, say, to Sebald's Rings of Saturn. 

Part of the most upsetting and lasting aspects of Cease to Understand is its emphasis on destruction. There is no doubt, sadly, that the theories unearthed by Labatut's cadre of mathematicians unlocked the violence wrought during the world wars. That correlation in itself is unnerving. But worse than that, according to Labatut, is a second sort of destruction: the one in which science, for all its advancements, ceases to present a basic understanding of the world. When this happens, it's a short distance to something more disorienting: humans lose the capacity to understand what it means to be human. We take recourse to forms of science and technology which can no longer present -- with Newtonian certainty -- the world around us.

Whether this is fiction, history, or philosophy seems beside the point: Cease to Understand is a warning: about how much we've accomplished, and about how little we actually know. The distance between the two erupted in the violence of the last century. 

Appreciation …

… Tom Stoppard, The Art of Theater No. 7

Tracking the decline …

… in this case, of Britain: Assault Victim Becomes Criminal While Attacker Walks Free

A poem for this morning …

… David Fisher — The Teacher

In case you wondered …

… The History of the Christmas Card

Check these out …

… Qualia

Be on your guard …

… Think Before You Click:

A poem for Thursday …

… Plaster cast torso of Apollo

In case you wondered…

… David McCullough’s “History Matters” (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

The mystery of faith and friendship …

… HUGH AND GUY (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Frederick Tibbetts — Dissonant Interval

A poem for this morning …

… Clouds — BY RÜŞTÜ ONUR

Something to think on …

… Inspiring Quotes

A pleasant reunion …

… Getting started with great expectations

Recalling a masterwork …

… Remembering Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Brooks Haxton —,It Comes to Me: Concision