Member: Macumbeira

I am missing your comments and wit.

Are you OK?

posted by polutropos at 9:45 pm (EST) on Nov 22, 2009

Fantastic review of The Counterfeiters! You made real sense of it for me.

Merci M'sieur!

posted by tomcatMurr at 6:31 am (EST) on Nov 22, 2009

If you decide to read another Ishiguro - make it When We Were Orphans, or, if you are feeling really ambitious, The Unconsoled which can be hard going at times but is the truest account of a dream you will ever read.

posted by slickdpdx at 1:48 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009

I'm sorry to be so vague. it's a narrative poem in 11 pieces. Lots of sailing. you can find it in this:

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Apple-Kingdom...

http://www.librarything.com/work/1055014

or in Walcott's Collected poems.

Here's a taster:

In idle August, while the sea soft,
and leaves of brown islands stick to the rim
of this Carribean, I blow out the light
by the dreamless face of Maria Concepcion
to ship as a seaman on the schooner Flight.
Out in the yard turning gray in the dawn,
I stood like a stone and nothing else move
but the cold sea rippling like galvanize
and the nail holes of stars in the sky roof,
till a wind start to interfere with the trees....

posted by tomcatMurr at 11:19 am (EST) on Nov 1, 2009

MONSIUER,

Have you read Derek Walcott's The Schooner Flight?

if not, drop everything and read it immediately. I read it again this evening and it made me think of you!

posted by tomcatMurr at 8:46 am (EST) on Nov 1, 2009

oh do share your thoughts when you get there! I revere both of them!

posted by tomcatMurr at 10:58 am (EST) on Oct 30, 2009

Hello
Curious spelling, Pourious. Well that's okay. The idea comes of the Italian Giambattiste Vico, curious spelling. Read his NEW SCIENCE. Read Orwell. Read Robert Anton Wilson. Those who say what they mean and mean what they say. Those who don't cheapen words. Our currency. What we deal with. How we understand one another. But mainly Vico who Joyce looked to for his structure among other things for Finnegans Wake. Vico saw things in cycles. One of those is the age of Barbarism that would after its stay develop into a new age. The cycle was, and is eternal. You will learn all of this, if you have not learned it already, in Vico's NEW SCIENCE. I can compile a little more if you like, just let me know.
Curious: why do you ask?

Porius

posted by Porius at 2:27 am (EST) on Oct 17, 2009

Thank you!

Gide and Stalin at Gorky's funeral? No kidding!!! LOl Now that would make an interesting fictional dialogue! The Counterfeiters is the only Gide I have ever enjoyed. Forster writes about it extensively in Aspects of the Novel.

posted by tomcatMurr at 9:30 am (EST) on Oct 11, 2009

More on maritime paintings, are you familiar with the 19th century Russian painter Aivazovsky?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Catego...

posted by tomcatMurr at 12:40 am (EST) on Oct 2, 2009

Thanks for the comment, Mac. I'm pretty sure you will enjoy Redburn, if only because you have had the good taste to feature Flynn's picture. Glad to see you liked Beam Ends.

Peace,
G

posted by Ganeshaka at 4:06 pm (EST) on Sep 26, 2009

Thanks for the review love Mac!

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 6:52 pm (EST) on Sep 22, 2009

Hi Mac, sorry for the delay, I've been away. I've read M&M several times, don't worry about spoilers. I value the comments you've been making on the M&M thread, BTW.
-Wilf

posted by WilfGehlen at 2:24 pm (EST) on Sep 19, 2009

Thanks for the link to your blog post on Possession. That clinches it: I really must have that edition. I was also pleased to find your post on the chronology of In Search of Lost Time--very helpful. I see you have the Gogol, another one of my Folio favorites.

posted by Medellia at 5:47 pm (EST) on Sep 8, 2009

Yes, I agree, I don't think civilisation is an illusion. Without it, we would all still be tearing raw meat with our hands, shitting in bushes, and leaving our dead to rot on the hills.

I think what I was trying to express in the introduction to my blog was my sense (of despair) that Western Civilisation is on its last legs. For me Western Civilisation is synonymous with rationality, the rule of law, open-mindedness, a kind of fearless energy in the realm of social improvement, political reform, cultural achievements, and the respect for other people's beliefs. I think of it (following Vico perhaps) as happening in waves, with periods where the above qualities were most evident: 5th Century Athens, Renaissance Italy, the period of the European Enlightenment, the Victorians, and perhaps, briefly, America for 20 years after WW2. I feel that the age we live in now displays none of the qualities I have mentioned.

Western Civilisation seems to me to have been overtaken by the forces of marketing, special interest groups, religious fundamentalism, and a kind of timidity in the face of the media on behalf of all those who should be leading fearlessly. Look how stem cell research was stymied by Bush due to the lobbying of big pharma and the Religious Right. Our culture has become degraded along with our language, and we are producing future generations who will be unable to think, and who will be practically ignorant of the basic facts of our history.

Now, I know that every period of Western civilisation has believed that it is in the twilight phase, and perhaps this feeling is the illusion that Richard means. But I would find it difficult to choose cultural products of our age to set beside the great achievements of the past, and to say with pride to future generations: this is what we did.

Gloomy thoughts.

posted by tomcatMurr at 8:16 am (EST) on Sep 6, 2009

Information is not knowledge.

Saul Bellow

Genius is always prescient: Bellow worte that in the early 70s long before the internet, but it has come so true.

Hey, I wanted to ask you after reading your post on liberal education on your blog, whether you have read Henry Adams's, The Education of Henry Adams . If not I think you would like it.

It's one of my all time favourite books.

posted by tomcatMurr at 10:01 am (EST) on Aug 31, 2009

Your blog is really amazing!! You have been busy reading and writing since you got back from Greece!! The piece on Gogol is excellently done!

posted by tomcatMurr at 6:35 am (EST) on Aug 30, 2009

Is that you Mac?

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 7:37 pm (EST) on Aug 29, 2009

I am, as you may know, from Bratislava, former Czechoslovakia. It amuses me to no end, that in the Czech and Slovak consciousness, it is Czechoslovakia which is the very heart of Europe. And looking at a map, as long as you include Russia in Europe, strictly geographically speaking, because of the enormous territory Russia occupies, it is possible to view Prague as being in the centre. I think the argument would be about perhaps Mozart and Kafka, and if they spent key time in Prague, well, clearly that proves its centricity, does it not? LOL

posted by polutropos at 9:49 am (EST) on Aug 29, 2009

It's the uniform of the 'pre-revolutionary' peasant. Bare feet and candle is the sign of the Orthodox pilgrim/penitent. Bulgakov calls it the Tolstoy shirt, because Tolstoy used to wear peasant dress towards the end of his life. During the 19th Century, wearing peasant dress was a sign of Slavophile commitment, and a rejection of Westerniser influence. Tolstoy himself became a symbol of this rejection. And you're right, the swim in the river is a baptism symbol.

Regarding Gogol, you are in for a treat. The Petersburg tales are very funny, as is Dead Souls. You might find these posts useful in understanding more about Gogol, the central and strangest figure in all Russian Lit, I reckon...

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2008/12/d...
http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2008/12/i...
hhttp://thelectern.blogspot.com/2008/12/...

posted by tomcatMurr at 1:00 am (EST) on Jun 19, 2009