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

Thank you, Cynthia

… An Advent villanelle from Philadelphia’s Frank Wilson: “one of those memories that are like photographs

RIP …

… Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88 (Hat tip, Daxe Lull))

Solvej Balle

 

I'd read and seen more recently about the Danish author Solvej Balle, and so decided to take on the first installment of her extended series, On the Calculation of Volume. 

The premise of the novel is key: a woman falls out of time and begins to relive the same day -- for what amounts, in total, to a year. She cannot understand how or why this has happens, and those around her cannot help: for they remain in time, and experience that specific day -- the eighteenth of November -- as if it were their first and only time living it. The result, as Balle writes, in a situation in which the primary character, Tara Selter, becomes overwhelmed with an abundance of memories -- but of the same singular day. Everyone else, however, experiences the inverse: they have no memory of a day which they have yet to live: they are, in a sense, free. 

For me, On the Calculation of Volume read as an exercise in existentialism. At its core -- in my reading, at least -- this was very much a novel about the need for action: that is, without action, with the decision to act, there can be no life, no meaning. If Tara Selter is stuck in the eighteenth of November that must be because, on some level, she has not willed herself to seek the next day, to act in such a way that warrants that day, that continuation.

Toward the end of the book, Balle insinuates that Selter may be able to "make room" for the next day: that is, she may be able to let the eighteenth of November wash over her, once and for all, and thus conclude that she has acted in such a way that requires more room, more time. Again, for me, this was an effective rendering of the existential dilemma around repetition and nothingness. For Tara Selter to liberate herself from the banality of a single day requires that she take action, that she think her way into something new. That point, at least, is well made. 

Ultimately, Solvej Balle succeeds in casting this complex journey -- from nothingness, to thought, to action -- as an odd celebration: of the small wonders, of the beauty in repetition, and of the fading human capacity for patience and appreciation. 

A poem for this morning …

… Lisa Russ Spaar — The Geese

Happy Thanksgiving …

… God’s Grandeur ( Hat tip, Dave lull)

Worth pondering …

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

Debuts and departures …

… FIRST & LAST VI

Tracking the decline…

… Don’t Be Fooled: Notre Dame’s About-Face Isn’t a Return to Faith

Remembering one of the true greats …

… I've got you under my skin – Nicky Haslam on Cole Porter {Hat tip. Dave Lull)

These days …

I woke up this morning after having a wonderful dream that immediately turned sour. In the dream I was having a great time shopping for clothes at Joseph A.Bank, which had been my favotite clothing store. Immediately upon waking I realized those days were forever past. You don't go shopping for elegant new clothes while using a walker, as I must these days. No, now is the time for remembering and reflecting. At least I can still do that.

A poem for this morning …

… Charles Wright — Roma 1

Good news …

… Notre Dame University re-adds ‘Catholic mission’ to staff values after backlash

Listen in …

… Bloomsbury's Nigel Newton on Gold-Digging, Fast Cars, Friendship, and Finding Harry Potter

RIP …

… Jill Freud death: Love Actually actor who inspired Narnia character dies, aged 98 (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Anita Loos

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -- Anita Loos's celebrated novel of the inter-war years -- is one of those books I'd been aware of for a long time, but had never read. Last week, I rectified that. I'll say at the start that, despite the accolades, this is not a novel on par with the work of either Fitzgerald, neither Scott nor Zelda. It's a book, certainly, that explores similar themes and geographies, but it does so in a far different fashion: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is effectively a comedy -- almost, for me, in the vein of Three Men in a Boat or Diary of a Nobody. There's a predictability to these novels: which doesn't make them any less funny, but they function based on an implicit understanding of what comes next. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was very much like that: there was almost a gimmicky quality to the whole thing. That said, despite the humor, Anita Loos does uncover a seriousness: about wealth and femininity, about education and accomplishment. The trouble, for me, was that each time one of those themes is probed, they seem almost to be invalidated by a joke or another dalliance. And I understand that is part of the way this novel operates. But I didn't take away much here: Lorelei Lee remains something of an enigma, despite her creed that "everything always turns out of the best." I suppose it does in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but there might have been other ways to present the roots of that optimism. 

 

A poem for today …

… The Christmas Bos by Richard Tillinghast (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Continuing …

… Poetry Stories: Mildred's Garden

I hope parents take note ……

… Notre Dame removes Catholic mission from staff values, touts new 'refreshed' values I also the media. i will no longer regard Notre Dame as a Catholic institution.

Good Lord …

… What Started as a Joke About Trump Is Now Filling Therapy Offices, Experts Warn The extent of my interest in politucs is that I keep up with the news and always make sure to vote.

That he was …

… Davis: My Q&A with author C.M. Kushins (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Dutch was cool. No doubt about that.

A poem for this morning …

… Claribel Alegría — Summing Up

Stefan Zweig

 

It had been many years since I last encountered a book by Stefan Zweig, but over the past month, I've read and finished perhaps his most acclaimed novel, Beware of Pity. Let me say at the start, this book is a triumph: it's everything I'd associated with Zweig -- and more. Published in 1939, the novel focuses on the relationship between a crippled young woman of aristocratic stock and an Austrian military officer, only slightly her senior. The complexity of that relationship allows Zweig to explore a range of themes, including love, patriotism, and wealth. But there's more than that: Zweig is also attuned to matters of identity, psychology, and control. In some sense, Beware of Pity is very much a reflection of its time: Zweig and Freud maintained a relationship for many years, and the influence of Freud on Zweig's characters and their motivations is clear. Then, too, there's the First World War, which comes crashing like a wave at the end of the novel, and serves, in some sense, to liberate Zweig's primary character, Anton Hofmiller, of his guilt, his lingering pity: in effect, nothing so small as actions in defense or rejection of love could escape the slaughter of the war. But then, Zweig offers a caveat: guilt, he writes, is never truly forgotten so long as the 'conscience' is still aware. Beware of Pity is wonderfully written, perfectly ordered, and evocative, in its characters, scenes, and scenery, of the fading days of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This is a paean to a lost time, and also, in many ways, to a lost love. 

A poem for this morning …

… Lewis Warsh — Drops

A poem for this morning …

… Peter Schjeldahl — Gauge

A poem for this morning …

… Laurance Wieder —=These Anemones, Their Song Is Made Up As They Float Along

Just so you knowv…

… SPECIAL SECRET

Further asventures of James Reese …

… Jack Carr’s thriller Cry Havoc

Great director, great film '…

… 18 Years Later, Ridley Scott's $270M Gangster Masterpiece Is Still Required Viewing (Hat tip, Jon Caroulis)

RIP …

… Protests Work: How The Satanic Temple Fell Apartee I once spent part of an evening chatting with a professed satanist. i found it very difficult to from laughing. sometimes I failed.

Together at last

… Saint Augustine, pears, and “mimetic cascades”

Sense and reference …

… Could Qualia Terms and Neuroscience Terms have the Same Reference?

A poem for today …

… Luis Alberto de Cuenca — William of Aquitaine Returns

Dim bulbs …

… https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-critics-who-deny-carpe-diem/ {Hat tip, Dave Lull) i enjoyed Dead Poets Society spmething is wrong with my iPad. i can't do italic or boldface.

Catching up …

… Redux

Sounds well worth seeing …

… The Choral (12A). Film Review. By Harry Mount - The Oldie (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Just so you know …

Blogging will be sketchy if at all today. i an getting ready to leave rehab and much has to be done.

A poem for this morning …

… Arakawa and Madeline Gins— Untitled

Blogging note …

I continue to languish in rehab. i may blog more later today. Right now I am in a mood to ponder, not write. i stare out the window at the trees, wonderfully graced with dazzling sunlight. May everyone have a blessed day.

Something to think on …

… inspring Quotes

Hmm …

… ‘href="https://archive.is/ykTJY">Nothing is real but sex and death’ — the private world of John Updike (Hat tip, Dave Lull) can't say I agree. sex is feat (or at least can be) and death is, well, inevitable. But life has a good deal more to offer than just those.

Rehab report …

I remain in bed at Saunders House, a very nice rehab facility. My right leg feels much better. So discharge may be near. As someone who has been remarkably healthy throughout my life, being an invalid is a peculiar experience. And an enlightening one. So many people are so kind. This afternoon I shall be ensconced in front of the stationay bike, which I enjoy. Soon there will be a meeting to decide if I am ready for discharge. Pray that I am. I long to be at home.

A poem for this morning …

… Silvia Guerra — Presumption of Heaven

A poem for this morning …

… Brad Gooch — H.

Hmm …

… As we grow out of intellectual adolescence, religion’s popularity soars (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

In case you wondered …

… Bob Dylan’s Superpower is That He Doesn’t Get Embarrassed (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Something to think on…

… Inspiring quotes

Listen and read …

… Mind To Me A Kingdom Is - Edward de Vere/William Byrd | Dedicated to Alexander Waugh ( hat tip, Dave Lull)

And the winner is

… Winner of the Petrona Award 2025 announced ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Frank O’Hara — Lisztiana, Much Later

Resolution …

i have decided to blog on a more regular basis — observations, opinions, and the like. I have been in the hospital since the operation on Monday to remove bone fragments from my hip, the result of a fall. So I have plenty of time to reflect. I spent most of last year in the hospital and rehab. I had a water retention problem that was finally resolved. And now a fall in my bedroom haslanded me back in the hospital. More later.

A poem for today …

… John Yau — O Pinyin Sonnet

Natalia Ginzburg

 

I was recently recommended the work of the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg. I didn't know much, if anything, about her, but I was intrigued, and so this week read and finished her Little Virtues. Separated in two parts, this collection of essays and reflections focuses, first, on place, especially on Ginzburg's sense for England, Italy, and Europe in the post-war period. The second part shifts its emphasis to what Ginzburg calls 'human relationships.' This section is primarily interested in experiences of youth, family identity, and friendship. Between the two, I far preferred the first, which contains a number prescient observations regarding English society, in particular. That section also achieves something unusual in terms of its narrative structure: here, Ginzburg constructs a narrative in the first-person, but the effect is something closer to what Rachel Cusk has more recently attempted: a sort of auto-fiction with the author seemingly at the center, but also hovering above, an observer to an intimate unfolding of events. The second portion of Little Virtues read a bit too didactically for me, with a number of suggestions regarding parenting, for instance, which seemed too prescriptive (and, in some ways, too political). That said, though, the whole of Little Virtues was a refreshing read, and a potent reminder of life's wonders. The final sentence, often quoted, says it all: a love of life does, indeed, beget a love of life.

Recommended …

sort of — “[At Swim-Two-Birds is] just the book to give to your sister, if she is a dirty, boozey girl.” – Dylan Thomas on Flann O’Brien’s masterpiece (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Something to think on …

… inspiring Quotes

Marilynne Robinson

 

It's been many years since I read Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's celebrated novel of history, faith, and mortality. I never loved that novel -- at least not in the way the critics suggested I might. But now, after all those years, I've returned to Robinson: this time via her first novel, Housekeeping. 

Here, again, the critics would have you believe you've encountered a masterpiece. And in some sense, I suppose, you have: the first half of Housekeeping, which establishes a sense of time and place, is highly effective. There's a clear evocation of the American west -- along with its history, people, and struggle. Indeed, struggle is at the heart of this novel: both against the land, but also against the strictures of society.

The tragedy which unfolds at the end of the novel is meant -- in my reading -- to bring the book full circle, to establish a link between it and a separate human struggle which starts the book. These episodes are different in their severity and context, but they share something which Robinson reinforces throughout the novel: water. This is a theme, a trope, a framing which guides Housekeeping. 

If I was disappointed by the second half of Housekeeping it's because Robinson introduces -- as she does in Gilead, too -- a secondary narrative drawing heavily from religious ideas and texts. I understand why she does this -- in Gilead, especially -- but here, in Housekeeping, it did not seem necessary: and the result was a powerful story which seems to have lost at least some of its momentum. (Faith is not a central theme in Housekeeping, and the inclusion of Robinson's secondary narrative seemed extraneous.) 

I don't want to be overly negative, though: by any measure, Housekeeping is a succesful, powerful novel. For a glimpse of the American temperament, the American frontier, and the development of the American economy -- for these concepts alone, the novel is worth the time. It is a book very much of individual characters in juxtaposition to forces larger than themselves.

Just so you know …

i won't be blogging todafor a while. i'm in the hospital awaiting an operartion.

Another passing …

… Ashleigh Brilliant (1933–2025) (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

In memoriam …

… John Coyne, RIP ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Congratulations …

… Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel Prize in literature

Thomas Bernhard

 

I recently finished The Loser, Thomas Bernhard's celebrated novel of artistry, excellence, and failure. At its core, this is a book about competition and comparison: about how, despite ourselves, we cannot avoid the tendency to differentiate, to distinguish. Bernard's focus is on elite piano players and their evolution over time and space. To label one of the three "a loser" is a bit of a stretch as that player is himself an exceptional talent. But compared with the virtuoso, with the genius, he can be nothing, at that level, but a failure. The plot of The Loser is not, though, what has attracted attention: instead, is is Bernhard's style, which fluctuates between the present and a sort of perpetual past. Bernhard captures that sense of the past in a number of ways: via memory, recollection, and imagination; but mostly, through an unusual interplay of syntax, repetition, and conjugating verbs in all forms of the past tense. A character had done, or was doing, or did do, or will have had to have done: it's almost to the point of Gertrude Stein, but that is not, in my reading, Bernhard's objective. Instead, he seems to be making a point about our ability as humans to construct entire stories from memory, from supposition. And even if I found the style here a bit, well, a bit gimmicky at times, I take the point that events are, by their very nature, transformed into the past, and that history, no matter how recent, can only be made real through the articulation of memories. In this way, at least, Bernhard packs a considerable punch: his story, told largely in the past tense, becomes immediately present, casting a double sense of sorrow: for what was, and for what now is. 

A poem for this morning …

… Jacques Dupin — Lichens

Remembering Guy Davenport …

… The Word Dear Alone Hangs on the Upper Verge' (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Happy and sad …

… Thoughts on moving houses (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Remembering …

… Phillies team that everyone doubted found its way to first World Series win

A poem for this morning …

… Priscilla Becker —/My Stint Among the Beloved

Sad —.and infuriating …

… The Murder of a South Philly Barber

For sale …

… A Delancey Street townhouse filled with 100,000 books is a bibliophile’s dream — and an epic estate sale (Hat tip, Dave Lull)