Random books from Macumbeira's library
Aspects of the novel by Forster E. M.
Selected Tales (World's Classics) by Edgar Allan Poe
Chroniques de la haine ordinaire by Pierre Desproges
Le Pere Goriot by Balzac
Louis-Ferdinand Céline by Frédéric Vitoux
Trésors du monde by Charroux Robert
We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific (Revised) by David Lewis
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My friend is a historian who is documenting what went on in Czechoslovakia just before and during WWII. Jews deported by the thousands into concentration camps, never to be seen again. People lacking the courage to speak up or do anything about it. An artist named Toyen, whom I did not know, hid in her apartment her lover for the duration of the war, risking death.
Such overwhelmingly sad stories.
posted by polutropos at 11:27 am (EST) on Nov 6, 2009
posted by tomcatMurr at 7:42 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009
Kahlil Gibran? seriously? Ew.
Braudel i have read,
Kazantsakis, yes (Wonderful!)
Mahfouz, yes. Everyone else is new to me! thank you!
What about Seferis? Elyitis? Ristsos? Cavafis? Lawrence Durrell?
posted by tomcatMurr at 7:40 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009
posted by slickdpdx at 1:48 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 11:48 am (EST) on Nov 1, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 11:43 am (EST) on Nov 1, 2009
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
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
So what are other great recent European films?
posted by polutropos at 8:04 pm (EST) on Oct 31, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 12:54 am (EST) on Oct 31, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 12:34 am (EST) on Oct 31, 2009
I just saw a very interesting film taking place in Belgium, though the city was not identified as far as I could tell. The film is called Le Silence de Lorna; it is made by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and and won the screenplay award at Cannes. I liked it quite a bit, although I will have to spend some time thinking about the conclusion and its implications. Have you heard of it, or even seen it?
posted by polutropos at 7:02 pm (EST) on Oct 30, 2009
posted by tomcatMurr at 10:58 am (EST) on Oct 30, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 3:48 am (EST) on Oct 17, 2009
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
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
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Catego...
posted by tomcatMurr at 12:40 am (EST) on Oct 2, 2009
That Maritime Paintings book you just entered looks outstanding, assuming one can judge a books by its cover!
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 7:01 pm (EST) on Sep 27, 2009
Peace,
G
posted by Ganeshaka at 4:06 pm (EST) on Sep 26, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 6:52 pm (EST) on Sep 22, 2009
-Wilf
posted by WilfGehlen at 2:24 pm (EST) on Sep 19, 2009
posted by Medellia at 5:47 pm (EST) on Sep 8, 2009
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
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
posted by tomcatMurr at 6:35 am (EST) on Aug 30, 2009
posted by EnriqueFreeque at 7:37 pm (EST) on Aug 29, 2009
posted by polutropos at 9:49 am (EST) on Aug 29, 2009
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