MIDDLEMARCH is the best novel I've read from all of the 19th Century literature I have yet had the time to devour. Not much time left for me. I'm old MIDDLEMARCH is the best novel I've read from all of the 19th Century literature I have yet had the time to devour. Not much time left for me. I'm old and slow, my mind's eye wandered through Eliot's imagined landscapes as her characters spoke to each other, reflecting on what was proper for them to reveal and what was best kept to themselves. Mary Anne Evans took her pen name, George Eliot, during a moment in history when women weren't treated as being capable of being serious authors. The public mind was set on a division of labour which was more rigidly gender divided than it is today. To me, Mary Garth is the persona in MIDDLEMARCH most resembling George Eliot:
"But when Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by Gripp & Co., Middlemarch, every one in the town was willing to give the credit of this work to Fred, observing that he had been to the University, "where the ancients were studied," and might have been a clergyman if he had chosen."
If you would like to step into the small town mindset of an early 19th Century English town, read MIDDLEMARCH. If you would like to see love bloom into the blues and back again, ever stronger, ever more solid, read MIDDLEMARCH. If you would like to know how marriage works or how marriage sometimes turns into lives of quiet desperation, read MIDDLEMARCH. If you would like to hear about the deeper secrets of men of fortune or how the politics of a very much less democratic form of class rule were discussed amongst decision makers with small businesses and even smaller intellects, read MIDDLEMARCH. To be sure, it's a very long and large piece of literature to consume. Chew it well. Digest its author's critical observations about men and women's social relations during a time never to be discovered in reality again. Read MIDDLEMARCH with attentive patience. You won't be disappointed....more
Read it on the toilet over several months, admittedly I was trashed sometimes myself. At first, I though R. Crumb was using a pen name. That's meant aRead it on the toilet over several months, admittedly I was trashed sometimes myself. At first, I though R. Crumb was using a pen name. That's meant as a compliment. Backderf can draw for the trashed amongst the working class, just as R. Crumb could. But Backderf is more connected up politically. TRASHED is the story of how cheapened, commodified society has become. Cheapness has to do with time-efficiency and fashion and the next thing and planned obsolescence and the dialectical intertwining of the accumulation of capital with the production of garbage. I await Backderf's take on sewage....more
Kempowski lulls you into the banalities of life in and around Mitkau. I say lull about the beginning chapters, then he unloads the consequences for thKempowski lulls you into the banalities of life in and around Mitkau. I say lull about the beginning chapters, then he unloads the consequences for the both the conforming and non-conforming (ever so slightly) conservative in the last chapters of ALL FOR NOTHING....more
Grant was very good at very many things which interested him and he studied e.g. horse riding, offensive military tactics and politics. He hated war aGrant was very good at very many things which interested him and he studied e.g. horse riding, offensive military tactics and politics. He hated war and was instrumental in pushing diplomatic solutions to conflicts which would have normally led to armed confrontation. He thought highly of Napoleon's military acumen, but despised both Napoleon and Robespierre most amongst European leaders of the past. He was thoroughly bourgeois nationalist believing firmly in "equality under the law" for all citizens. He was morally grounded in Methodist Christianity, but firmly opposed any linking of religion with the State. This became glaringly apparent during the last months of his second term as POTUS when he gave a series of speeches endorsing free, secular public education for all citizens. He was amazingly advanced in many ways over his contemporaries in terms of his attitudes toward African and Native Americans as well as Jews. Southern racists wanted to assassinate him because of his insistence on voting rights for freedmen. European State leaders were aghast at his condemnation of the way they had treated Asians. He was extremely cool headed under pressure, even as bullets whizzed by his ears. He was very loyal to his friends, to people who stood by him during hard times. Unfortunately, some of his best friends took advantage of what they perceived as his gullibility....more
Haruf has a way with plain language. Bukowski has this way in his lumpen and proletarian milieu. Hemingway at his best had this natural sounding styleHaruf has a way with plain language. Bukowski has this way in his lumpen and proletarian milieu. Hemingway at his best had this natural sounding style as well as Hamsun, Traven, Yates and Steinbeck. Kent concentrates on the inhabitants of one small town in Colorado.
In OUR SOULS AT NIGHT a long time resident of Holt decides to visit her equally long time resident neighbour with an invitation. "Let's spend the night together. Now I need you more than ever." This is an all out of the blue proposal for Louis. Addie insists no hard feelings if her sleepover suggestion is turned down or doesn't work out. The 70 year old Louis says, "Yes." to his 70 year old neighbour. After all, she's been a widower for years and Louis's wife died long ago. Hint: they develop a loving relationship.
Small town America is portrayed in a tender light in Haruf's fiction. And it can be, as I've lived that life. Lots of negatives left out, but that's okay. Haruf's writing is superb. It flows like a cold, clean, clear Colorado mountain creek. ...more
In PLAINSONG there is a level of honest conversation which we would all do well to celebrate. The McPheron brothers, Guthrie, Maggie Jones and VictoriIn PLAINSONG there is a level of honest conversation which we would all do well to celebrate. The McPheron brothers, Guthrie, Maggie Jones and Victoria Roubideaux, Ike and Bobby. On the other hand, we have the Beckmans. PLAINSONG reads as smoothly and clearly as Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Haruf embodies his characters with the material truth of everyday small town life in a time not so long ago,when high school teachers were still lighting up cigarettes while waiting to put their stencils on the mimeograph machine. It was a time in America before anyone had heard of sexism, animal rights, vegan diets or mobile phones. It was a time when 10 year old kids would ride, feed, and stable their horses without supervision. It was a time before the birth control pill. It was another time, one we should all visit or revisit as the case may be. To be sure it was vulgar. To be sure there were fewer ideological masks for humans to hide behind. ...more
A great read on where we came from and how it is we ended up as powerless and impoverished as we are increasingly becoming. Should be the standard Am A great read on where we came from and how it is we ended up as powerless and impoverished as we are increasingly becoming. Should be the standard American history text for all U.S. high school curriculums. ...more
Hilarious empty members of the ruling class talking romantic nonsense and about how nice it must be to be a worker. After all they are so civilised. THilarious empty members of the ruling class talking romantic nonsense and about how nice it must be to be a worker. After all they are so civilised. They no long have torture or public executions. Makes one want to shout The Bolsheviks are coming. The Bolsheviks are coming. The peasants are hopelessly benighted committed to their religion interpreted as dogma. After all isn't that what platonic Idealism is all about. You see and sense a similar thing when you watch Bertolucci's "1900". Indeed if you just use a little of your imagination you can envision bourgeois cretins making similar vacuous observations about life today. The ruling class has free-time. It just doesn't know what to do with it. Sensuous existence seems to be composed of Bunuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire". They are the boring complaining of being bored as their minds lay immersed in empty abstractions. Their ideals remain in the empty realm of perfection in their minds.
Smile. That's what Chekhov wanted you to do. He wanted raise a sardonic smile. Also perhaps to recognise a little of that old bourgeois societal emptiness in your own life. Enjoy some black humour. Recover. Move on as you say to yourself "nothing's happening" or as Beckett would have his characters put it, "nothing to be done." Then watch another play by Anton and think of the rise of those workers councils (soviets) which began to emerge amongst the women workers of Ivanovo in 1905. See the leitmotif. It's the death culture. Change the leitmotif....more
Piketty has NOT read Marx's CAPITAL. He has said so himself. You can tell from his critiques of CAPITAL and Marx's political positions that he's a libPiketty has NOT read Marx's CAPITAL. He has said so himself. You can tell from his critiques of CAPITAL and Marx's political positions that he's a liberal who just wants to save capital from destroying itself.
How?
By taxing wealth and redistributing the proceeds to fund public health, education and welfare. ...more
This is a great book for working class Australians to get their heads around in order to be able to understand what the mainstream press and politiciaThis is a great book for working class Australians to get their heads around in order to be able to understand what the mainstream press and politicians are talking about or trying to deflect attention from. The concept of NAIRU alone is worth reading about as it is a bi-partisan policy which ensures that 5.7% of the workforce must remain unemployed in order to keep the inflation rate down to the 2% target level. ...more
“It is as clear to me now that was upon arrival as an immigrant that there is no link anywhere to be found between the child who I was in Zimbabwe and“It is as clear to me now that was upon arrival as an immigrant that there is no link anywhere to be found between the child who I was in Zimbabwe and the adult I was force to becom upon immigration. I had learn to speak again, from scratch, and when I did it came of as academic jargon. I had resorted to teaching myself from book, the only compainions who were tolerant enough to bide with me until I’d figured enough things out. I still had the choking hesitiation in my voice, of the strangled child, but I was on fragile steps, little mermaid walking on a ground of swords steps, in order to assert myself and my perspectives.
“Donald Meltzer, the psychoanalyst, says that those who murder their inner child develop a grave capacity for brutality against themselves and others. Mine wasn’t dead yet, and was doing her best to stay alive, but all was based on precepts from a different cultural paradigm, which I could not have dwelt in any more, due to my growing need for knowledge, even if a part of me had weanted to remain that innocent--to retain the innocence of a child indefinitely.”
Give it a go. FATHER DAUGHTER WAR is very well written. Have patience. Keep reading. At first, her father’s voice adds the adult to the child’s first person memory. Reality is captured through an ever maturing scamper through the memories of one, Jennifer Frances Armstrong. Grieving for a lost home where nature was everywhere and taken for granted. Armstrong is honestly pulling you back to a different sense of time and place. Immersion in FATHER DAUGHTER WAR will help cure some of your uncritically examined Cold War narratives. From the impressionistic imagery of first childhood memory to the growing consciousness of a girl becoming teen, you can feel like you’ve been there, in a certain part of Africa, in a certain set of circumstances from a certain individual’s maturing memories, reflections and experience.
Remember what it was like to be 12, a child on the edge of puberty?
What did you know about the world then?
What amazing discoveries were you making every day of your life?
Well, at least to you, they appeared as “amazing discoveries”.
Only this was Africa, specifically a Rhodesian child’s life. Things were different from the way you remembered them at 12 or 2 or 4 or 16, unless you lived in Borrowdale before 1984. Still, there is a connection to be had in the sheer wonderment of the adventure life was when we were children flowing through FATHER DAUGHTER WAR.
To be sure, there were the differences.
Want to go on vacation? Better catch the convoy or risk being shot in an ambush along the way. Everyday life in a zone of civil war. You read about them nowadays--personal stories of everyday life in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And then, the trek out to the new land. Culture clash is part of the immigration story. For one thing, nature changes. Fauna and flora in the outdoors are much more under control in the Perthian urban setting. Nature seems drier, hotter and much less fecund. This has its effects within the culture. There are other matters, many other matters covered in FATHER DAUGTER WAR. You’ll see.
Ever wanted to hug your secret 6th grade heart throb? Of course you did. And so, when the opportunity arises at a girlfriend’s birthday party, you grab Paul kind of tightly. Jennifer is coming of age. But the convoy and Paul come years after she has eaten African soil, liked it and been punished for it by having her mouth washed out with soap by her mother. It’s also after being told by her elementary school teacher that playing with boys’ toys was wrong. Bricks are not for girls! But that happens after soil.
One of the funniest books ever written. Unlike CATCH22 or THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK,Beckett's humour in MOLLOY is centered on his favourite modern archOne of the funniest books ever written. Unlike CATCH22 or THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK,Beckett's humour in MOLLOY is centered on his favourite modern archetypes: vapid cowards, obsessive compulsive casualties of bourgeois dominance, petty sadists and self-crippled misfits leading ordinary lives,ever obedient to the official authorities.
On the whole, I think MOLLOY is even funnier than CATCH22. IMO, a lot of the problem with reading Samuel Beckett lies with his liberal interpreters (conservatives--forget it). People wonder what Beckett's on about and they go for advice from many of the very sorts of people he's targeting with his humour. I think the key to reading MOLLOY is grasping how Beckett must have felt in Occupied France, being a member of the Resistance, surrounded by people more concerned with petty matters of everyday obedience to official authority than imagining ways to do anything meaningful to stop the Nazis. His characters' obsessive-compulsive concerns and narrow individualist focus make them (literally their bodies) corrode before yours and their eyes. Once that's understood, the reader can mine pages and pages of black humour from Molloy's and Moran's journeys to find security and approval from authority on their roads to becoming helpless heaps....more
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