tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post1214417159242056329..comments2024-03-28T05:13:13.921-04:00Comments on Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Today's Inquirer reviews ...Frank Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-17247190903950208732009-03-30T01:25:00.000-04:002009-03-30T01:25:00.000-04:00Now, I know you don't mean, if you dropped the oth...Now, I <I>know</I> you don't mean, if you dropped the other shoe, "and men were writers" because most of your favourite writers are women, ISTM.<BR/><BR/>But, I think you'll get a real kick out of <A HREF="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090327.wbkwheatsheaf28/BNStory/globebooks/home" REL="nofollow">an all-men's book-club story in <I>The Globe and Mail</I></A> which has the most astonishing comment attached to it, I can't help point out that it must not be missed. <I>Incroyable!</I> (The piece is slugged, "A pint and a chat with a man's man" and? Guess who this man's man is? Betcha could, too, if you thought about it for a minute, given our discussions of boxers, wrestlers, wrasslers, <I>et.al.</I><BR/><BR/>Yep, Morley's son: Barry Callaghan. Lovely piece; somehow, just know you'll enjoy it big lots (or, IOW, it's got balls and whistles on it :)).<BR/><BR/>But, later, I got to thinking about men, writing, derring-do (as your so appropriately and punnaciously called it), and death; I recalled a death that really typified twentieth-century cruelty under Franco's regime. <BR/><BR/>(And, I do remember the machine-gun greenguys when I was in Madrid at the same time Jim Morrison died in France, just serendipitously. Scary place, though, trying to see the Velázquez in Room 17 and watching them watching the little red-headed white dame. Creepy.)<BR/><BR/>Here, I am thinking most horrifically and specifically of the assassination of Federico García Lorca:<BR/><BR/>Franco's firing-squad, so the story goes, wrought its "poetic justice" by ending the queer's brief life with a shot to the rectum.<BR/>p.s. During the late seventies, early eighties, when I drove taxi, our main garage was down the street from The 'Sheaf; so, natch, this then-drunk remembers the place all too vividly and it's described exquisitelyJudith Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15630731762216185341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-2461661356983006992009-03-29T23:11:00.000-04:002009-03-29T23:11:00.000-04:00Back when writers were men!Back when writers were men!Frank Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-4391585367349584412009-03-29T17:12:00.000-04:002009-03-29T17:12:00.000-04:00Goreously and gorgeously recounted, Frank. Not a ...Goreously and gorgeously recounted, Frank. Not a book I think I'll track down in this lifetime. Beautifully written, IOW. Nice to see someone actually quote from the book under review, though; know a few who could take a lesson or two from you.<BR/><BR/>Tragically, the eye-dagger carnage didn't end there and then, particularly since in 1593, the self-possessed atheist, Christopher Marlowe (from whom Shakespeare copped so many chops), carelessly and arrogantly broadcast his belief that there were irreconcilable inconsistencies in the Bible and was thus mortally wounded in a tavern brawl at Deptford, three miles outside of London, by Ingram Frizer, apparently over a bar bill. Marlowe drew his dagger; Frizer wrestled it away from him and drove it through the 29-year-old celebrity's right eye.<BR/><BR/><I>Plus ça change . . .</I>Judith Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15630731762216185341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-12558987005087877732009-03-29T13:58:00.000-04:002009-03-29T13:58:00.000-04:00Frank,Good review of Bernard Cornwell's "Agincourt...Frank,<BR/><BR/>Good review of Bernard Cornwell's "Agincourt."<BR/><BR/>I enjoyed the book and while reading it I was thankful I live in the 21st Century. <BR/><BR/>Cornwell told me in an interview that the story is most important to him, yet he does his homework and he nails the era, I think. <BR/><BR/>He did a good job of presenting what men thought and believed in regards to religion and war in that time, and he also gave us the awful sights, sounds and smells. <BR/><BR/>Readers, I believe, will remember the smell for some time after reading the book. It was a brutal and filthy time. <BR/><BR/>Thanks for the good review. <BR/><BR/>PaulPaul Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07593938088512203541noreply@blogger.com