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Hello, everyone. Welcome to this fortnight's thread.

Let me start by saying that I'm in the midst of a busy patch and I haven't managed to keep up with the last thread, for which I do apologise. Thankfully, I can move on to the big story of the week which is the grand opening of the Guardian's new Books section thread: What we're reading. A huge thank you to @Hushpuppy for persevering in her campaign even when things looked pretty hopeless. I've only skimmed it so far, but it was lovely to see some old friends back talking about books again. As promised by Lisa last week, she and I have now talked about the future of ersatz TLS. We concluded that it's such early days with the new thread at the Guardian that there are no decisions to be made yet. We're going to carry on here as normal and wait until we have some feel for how our collective book-posting behaviour has been changed by the new thread before proposing any changes. So do please continue to let us know your thoughts as time goes on.

I did want to write more, but there's something else calling for my attention right now and I do want to get this thread up! I will say a quick welcome to the new film thread set up by @Gpfr � welcome! - and sign off for the time being.

Picking up on a post from Andy, which he's just left on the old thread: Andrey Kurkov is on BBC Radio 4 programme Front Row tomorrow night at 7.15 pm. Available afterwards as a podcast.

And here's the link for What we're reading at the Guardian:

I am copying here @Bill's post, which also came close to the cut off for the last thread:

"Unexpected reading from Alban Berg:
The Private Life of Helen of Troy is a delightful book: the only possible interpretation of Helen as Lulu. (17 June 1928)
- Letters to His Wife

(For a bit on the author of this novel, see my review of The Making of Middlebrow Culture.):
/review/show..."

Anne wrote: "I am copying here @Bill's post, which also came close to the cut off for the last thread:

"Unexpected reading from Alban Berg:
The Private Life of Helen of Troy is a ..."

Thanks, Anne, but I doubt that my comment was worth carrying over to a new thread.

Milder start to Feb, my birthday month, small dibs and dabs of snowdrops emerging...

Reading is highly rewarding in 2022 so far, with the following books:

Southern Steel
A subtle and well constructed tale of home front Australia in WW2, the female talent for observational writing is strong but the male characters are also believable and well written, something Cusack shares with Willa Cather. Women and war are one of the themes but also the clash between capitalism and the workers in a war economy

Voyage of the Beagle
Darwins youthful record of his travels in South America, with a rich variety of observations and anecdotes, travelling with Gauchos, meeting Argentine dictators, Fuegian Indians and other personalites. He also manages to batter a fox with his geological hammer, that fox is now stored in the Natural History Musuem

18
as anyone here knows i loathe a lot of too clever by half modern fiction, this Latvian novel is just pure enjoyment. There is philosophy, history,mild elements of science fiction and some comedy, a thoughtful novel

Story of a Death Foretold: Pinochet, the CIA and the Coup against Salvador Allende
Chile 1973 revisited, the vicious removal of a democratically elected left wing leader at the behest of the CIA and Kissinger, with help from local hoodlums in gold braid. A sad, chilling tale, the style is filled with cross references to the greater Latin American movements and of course what happened in Chile, then spread elsewhere within years

Thanks Anne great work as usual!

Anne wrote: "Hello, everyone. Welcome to this fortnight's thread.

Let me start by saying that I'm in the midst of a busy patch and I haven't managed to keep up with the last thread, for which I do apologise. T..."

Appreciate the work you and Lisa have done. I agree that it's best to wait and see on the Guardian.

Thanks to Anne and Lisa for keeping this place going. I'm wavering over whether or not I want to re-join the Guardian but will probably cave in eventually.

I am not progressing very fast with my voyages around the Pacific Ocean in The Boundless Sea by David Abulafia, slowly making my way from island to island.

So far the book has been telling of the early Polynesian explorations and I will perhaps note two pieces of interest amongst the many.
The navigators were highly esteemed people in their tribes and were trained from a very young age. They were held in even higher regard than the chiefs. Their navigational skills stemmed from many sources, the stars, the waves, the flight of birds and they had some instinct for longitude hundreds of years before western sailors. Captain Cook thought that they were able to colonise new islands by chance but it is most likely that he was wrong, they were supremely skilful.

The boats that they used were usually double hulled but I was surprised when reading how much was carried when setting out for a new island


‘It was understood that a single hull did not suit small boats in high seas. Polynesian boats were hard to topple; and those that set out for new lands must have been large enough to carry men, women, supplies of food and water (often stored in bamboo tubes), domestic animals and seeds or tubers ready for planting in new lands. Those heading for familiar territory evidently carried goods to be exchanged, such as ceramics, local produce of the soil, and tools or blocks of stone for making into tools. No doubt there was great variety, though some features, such as the use of vegetable fibres to tie together the components, were probably standard. These bonds, made of coconut fibre, were strong and resilient, and rendered the hull more secure because of the flexibility they offered.�

There must have been a great sense of adventure when starting out. Would I have had the courage? I hope so.

Thanks, Anne, as always for the intro - and certainly no need for apologies. I think you and Lisa are right - good to carry on as we are here for now.

In the latest Paris Review Redux email, (every Sunday - free interviews, stories, and poems from the archives of The Paris Review), is this written by William Weaver, translator of Italo Calvino. I thought people might like it.

With Calvino every word had to be weighed. I would hesitate for whole minutes over the simplest word—bello (beautiful) or cattivo (bad). Every word had to be tried out. When I was translating Invisible Cities, my weekend guests in the country always were made to listen to a city or two read aloud.

Writers do not necessarily cherish their translators, and I occasionally had the feeling that Calvino would have preferred to translate his books himself. In later years he liked to see the galleys of the translation; he would make changes—in his English. The changes were not necessarily corrections of the translation; more often they were revisions, alterations of his own text. Calvino’s English was more theoretical than idiomatic. He also had a way of falling in love with foreign words. With the Mr. Palomar translation he developed a crush on the word feedback. He kept inserting it in the text and I kept tactfully removing it. I couldn’t make it clear to him that, like charisma and input and bottom line, feedback, however beautiful it may sound to the Italian ear, was not appropriate in an English-language literary work.

CCCubbon wrote: "I am not progressing very fast with my voyages around the Pacific Ocean in The Boundless Sea by David Abulafia, slowly making my way from island to island ..."

This sounds really interesting!

AB76 wrote: "Milder start to Feb, my birthday month..."

Mine too!

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Milder start to Feb, my birthday month..."

Mine too!"

Mine three.

Thanks for the new thread and all you and Lisa do, Anne. I like it here and hope we keep going

Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Milder start to Feb, my birthday month, small dibs and dabs of snowdrops emerging...

Reading is highly rewarding in 2022 so far, with the following books:

[book:Southern Steel|171415..."

lol.....i hate the GR set up but decided to work a bit harder on presentation!

Interesting article in the LRB by Colm Toibin on John McGahern

I enjoyed "The Dark", though found some of the novel disturbing and Toibin reminded me of the repressive, catholic church dominated and backwards Ireland of the 1930s-1980s. That novel was banned and McGahern was sacked from his job as a teacher due to it

Note spoilers will be replete throughout the following:

Is Emma Woodhouse a heroine?

That Jane Austen’s Emma is a near masterpiece ought to be confessed from the top. It pales in comparison to Pride and Prejudice, but the entire literary output of the earth in the past 20 years similarly fades in that comparison.



Emma Woodhouse is the pinnacle of the unsavory protagonist: she contains enough honesty and warmth to retain your interest, and enough stupidity and arrogance to inflame your distaste. As always Austen is masterful at drawing her characters, but nowhere else in the few works of hers that I have read has this character work been such a detriment.
One because she created an unsavory protagonist too well and, two, because her character development comes at the expense of all other aspects of the narrative. Despite taking place in a bustling village, there is not any sense of place outside of 2 or 3 drawing rooms. Nature is merely a set piece for social misunderstanding.

Austen digs Emma’s grave a little too deeply, so that her redemption is at best unjustified and at worst figmentary. Only by bringing the even more intolerable Mrs. Elton into the narrative is Emma able to seem less bitchy. She’s a congenital classist who doesn’t appreciate the advent of capitalistic upwards mobility. Only old money matters, because the back that was broken to earn the lucre needs to be from at least a great-great-grandfather. Anyone who sweats is distasteful. She connives and orchestrates weddings and friendships in a positively eugenicist manner, based solely upon her personal feeling for rightness and just fit. She’s Francesca Galton just waiting to discover genetic fitness.

She’s also a physiognomist, undoubtedly a racist in waiting and a budding phrenologist. She sizes people up by their radiant face, or their back stiffness and only down the line will she notice the marks on their speech or the prejudice of their ideas. Gypsies and Jews are mentioned with shudders. Bores are propped up due to bank balances.

She does come around, but really only through the gentle prodding of Mr. Knightely, her lifelong, 16 years older friend. Knightely gives the idea of a patient groomer, trying to bring forth the good, nougaty center of Emma and discard the chalky chocolate covering. But, you can’t help but think that the Emma candy bar is going to taste pretty crummy once George finally gets to take a bite. Plus, grooming the lady whose diapers you once changed is a touch creepy.


Spunky she may be, but her final reflections on her friend Harriet’s wedding show her to be irrevocably, idly stuck-up. There is not much hope that she will wind up helping the poor or opening up a dress shop. I fear Emma is doomed to a life of unceasing mansplaining and I fear that George Knightely will find himself muttering:
“Emma my dear, I am afraid that I can’t believe that the Queen should be able to bathe in the blood of the workhouse poor�

"No, Emma, I don’t believe that movable print will bring down the empire�

“My dearest wife, I must ask you to reconsider whether an island without any natural resources and only turnips and wilted greens to feed it’s open mouths is really a Glorious Empire capable of going it alone.�

I fear George will start frequenting houses of ill repute.

That being said, it is a magnificent novel. Jane Austen is phenomenal, just being able to contemplate tolerance towards Emma Woodhouse is the mark of a masterful author.

give wrote
Thanks for the new thread and all you and Lisa do, Anne. I like it here and hope we keep going"

I like it here too.

@Mach

Well I suppose that’s one advantage in reading as an ebook but the maps are not so clear and I have to look elsewhere. I can make the print larger and darker so that is another couple of pluses but you have no idea how much I envy your ability to go to a bookshop and browse, come out with a bagful.

Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Interesting article in the LRB by Colm Toibin on John McGahern

I enjoyed "The Dark", though found some of the novel disturbing and Toibin reminded me of the repressive, catholic churc..."

I loathe all Toibins fiction, like with Julian Barnes but i like both of their non-fiction essays and articles. I do sometimes wonder where authors get disturbing sections of their fiction from, when you read it and shudder...

CCCubbon wrote: "give wrote
Thanks for the new thread and all you and Lisa do, Anne. I like it here and hope we keep going"

I like it here too.

@Mach

Well I suppose that’s one advantage in reading as an ebook b..."

are physical books a complete no-no then CCC? i remember helping my mother deliver large print novels to various people as a kid, are those just not available anymore or am i rather ignorant of your situation?

Mostly, yes,AB for various reasons. I do buy poetry books and with the aid of a reading lamp and magnifying glass can read a poem or two a day. At the moment it’s Edwin Morgan’s Glasgow poems.

Mustn’t grumble but urge everyone to look after their eyes and savour the book reading years.

Machenbach wrote: "Today I went to my new, local 'Radical Not-for-Profit' bookshop. Not really aimed at me, but it's nice to see ..."

Yesterday I went to my local for-profit big chain bookstore for a Harry Potter birthday present. "Do you have a loyalty card?" I was asked. "No I don't." "Would you like one?" "No thanks I don't read very much."

She was a nice shop assistant and I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

CCCubbon wrote: "Mostly, yes,AB for various reasons. I do buy poetry books and with the aid of a reading lamp and magnifying glass can read a poem or two a day. At the moment it’s Edwin Morgan’s Glasgow poems.

Mus..."

wise words CCC, the mince pies must not be taken for granted (apologies for the cockney slang)

Machenbach wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "The Boundless Sea by David Abulafia."

I really want to read this but I made the mistake of picking up a copy in a bookshop and sprained my wrist in doing so."

He's also a leading light of "History Reclaimed." Narrow-minded though it might be (of me, I mean), that's probably enough to put me off.

I finished Olga Ravn's "The Employees." Useless as this sounds, I've yet to fully gather my thoughts on this unnerving little book.

Last night, I launched out into the first few pages of Didion's "Play as it Lays," the first of her fiction I've tried.

CCCubbon wrote: "Mostly, yes,AB for various reasons. I do buy poetry books and with the aid of a reading lamp and magnifying glass can read a poem or two a day. At the moment it’s Edwin Morgan’s Glasgow poems.

Mus..."

Perhaps I am just lucky then as I have cheap ($~4) readers in every room. I thought - what price vanity - this morning when reading an article in the NYTimes about a woman who got a $109 prescription for a new eyedrop (really small bottle!) because she never could find her reading glasses. And you are limited to using these eye drops to once a day.

Red flags for me. Tried and true works for me, and I'm not taking any chances with my eyes.

Meanwhile, I am trying to be diligent and work my way through an ILL book - A Planters' Republic: The Search For Economic Independence In Revolutionary Virginia. Originally, the planters in Virginia relied on indentured labor and later on slaves, while at the same time the planters became hostages to mercantilists in England and Scotland (after 1707). I am in the midst of the repercussion of the Stamp Act now.

If anyone here is aware of a history of the Seven Year's War with a global view, I would appreciate having the title. The only book I have concentrates on the events in the Colonies.

My mystery is a classic put out by Otto Penzler (if I get my courage up to travel, I'm heading to DC and NYC this spring, and I will visit Otto's bookshop in NYC!). It's 'The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown (Amazon/Goodread's search function could use some tweaking). I've just begun it.

And for audio, it's What the Dead Know which takes a real event (two pre-teen girls missing after an outing to a local mall. This happened long ago (more than 25 years) when I lived in the DC area and their killer was only apprehended a few years ago). But I digress because Laura Lippman weaves a different outcome and does it suspensefully well.

Thanks for the intro Anne.
I'm just done with a Hungarian novella from 1990 that I certainly would recommend.
The Circumcision by György Dalos translated by Judith Sollosy.
Set in Budapest in 1955, this recounts a few months in the life of 12 year old Robi Singer, preparing for his barmitzvah, but necessary that he undergoes a certain procedure beforehand, that he missed out on as a newborn.
That premise alone is certain to provide tension, and indeed humour, but Robi's days are stifled by his overweight and depressed mother, and his grandmother, with whom he shares a bed when he is at home. Robi boards at his Jewish school, which is part of an orphanage, but also attends a 'Jews-for-Christ' service every Sunday with his mother.
It is therefore far from being your usual sort of coming of age tale. It is a fascinating insight into life of the Jewish community in Budapest under the Communist regime in the 1950s , but the real highlight of Dalos's book is in describing Robi and his tribulations at this stressful time. The 12 year old is himself obese, just at the stage when his own image has become important to him. As he sneaks a glance at the other, more developed boys in the shower, he is closer and closer to that all important decision, to accept the knife and embrace tradition, or not.

Anne wrote: "As promised by Lisa last week, she and I have now talked about the future of ersatz TLS. We concluded that it's such early days with the new thread at the Guardian that there are no decisions to be made yet. We're going to carry on here as normal and wait until we have some feel for how our collective book-posting behaviour has been changed by the new thread before proposing any changes."

My own - very early - reaction is that it would be useful if both this eTLS group and the Guardian's new thread could remain open. This group, having fewer contributors, is a bit easier to get one's head around, and the smaller sub-sections are also useful as a means of taking topics of interest to only a proportion of contributors prevents the main thread from becoming over-long.

In the Guardian, it's good to see some old names and to have some features not available on GR, but I wonder what will happen with the idea of leaving it open for a whole month - it may become too messy - or will it risk getting lost, as there is no easy way to find it after the first few days?

So - we'll see how things develop. In the meantime - much thanks!

CCCubbon wrote: "Mostly, yes,AB for various reasons. I do buy poetry books and with the aid of a reading lamp and magnifying glass can read a poem or two a day. At the moment it’s Edwin Morgan’s Glasgow poems.

Mus..."

I experienced a moment of confusion, and nearly commited a big faux pas.

In any case, I had to "do" Edwin Muir, another Scottish poet, for A Level and have had a real affection for him ever since and still have the collected poems somewhere. I also really enjoyed one of his autobiographies. I think there are several and I'm no longer sure which one I read.

This description of watching a man on Orkney building a boat, remembered from Muir's childhood, has always gripped me:

"He would stand over the growing boat and deliberate for a long time on what he should do next, at last saying in a judicial voice, as if he had just convinced himself, ‘We’ll do this now�, or ‘We’ll do that now�. He was never in a hurry, he sawed and planed and chiselled in a particular way of his own, absorbed in the thought of the boat, as if there was nothing but it and himself in the world, and his relation to it had a complete objective intimacy."

I love that relationship of objective intimacy.

Muir's family had to leave Orkney for Glasgow during his childhood, which he experienced as something traumatic.

Machenbach wrote: "Thanks Anne. I do think we should plug on here as well, at least for the time being.

Today I went to my new, local 'Radical Not-for-Profit' bookshop. Not really aimed at me, but it's nice to see ..."

Of these, 'How we are translated' interests me (as a bilingual from birth, and a trilingual from marriage)... I see from GR reviews that it's a bit of a marmite book (but I like marmite, and might like this).

I look forward to your review.

AB76 wrote: "Milder start to Feb, my birthday month, small dibs and dabs of snowdrops emerging...

Reading is highly rewarding in 2022 so far, with the following books:

Southern Steel
...

Voyage of the Beagle
...

18
...

Story of a Death Foretold: Pinochet, the CIA and the Coup against Salvador Allende
..."

I'm hoping to read Darwin's Voyage some time in the next few months but the other three are all new to me and all now added to my list, though it'll probably be some time before I get to them, based on my current reading plans.

Machenbach wrote: "Very diplomatic, but you really should have said: "No thanks, I only buy really rare books from Ebay and charity shops."."

Haha that's more or less what MrB said when I told him.

And re the 'really rare' book - no interest from five approaches, though two got back and asked the price but then backed out. So when I can get round to it it's on to Plan B, though I'm not sure which plan is Plan B at the moment.

Veufveuve wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Mostly, yes,AB for various reasons. I do buy poetry books and with the aid of a reading lamp and magnifying glass can read a poem or two a day. At the moment it’s Edwin Morgan’s Gl..."

Here is Muir’s most famous poem The Horses for you




This one that I did not know captured me as read some more.
When I go out now, particularly anywhere different, my poor distorted and double vision makes me very unsure quite where I am and I get scared of falling. It’s a horrible bewilderment and MrC has to guide me, tell me where there are steps. It doesn’t do much for one’s confidence but guess it will get easier as I adapt. I’m okay where I know. Anyway you will understand why this poem attracted.

The Way. Edwin Muir

Friend, I have lost the way.

The way leads on.�
Is there another way?

The way is one.

I must retrace the track.�
It’s lost and gone.�
Back, I must travel back!�
None goes there, none.�
Then I’ll make here my place,
(The road leads on),

Stand still and set my face,�
(The road leaps on),�
Stay here, for ever stay.�
None stays here, none.�
I cannot find the way.�
The way leads on.

Oh places I have passed!�
That journey’s done.�
And what will come at last?�
The road leads on.

Machenbach wrote: "Paul wrote: "Note spoilers will be replete throughout the following:

Is Emma Woodhouse a heroine?

That Jane Austen’s Emma is a near masterpiece ought to be confessed from the top. It pales in c..."



I just posted it over there, so fire away

Machenbach wrote: "I've read quite a lot of McGahern ('though not The Dark) and rate him highly, but he can be pretty unrelentingly grim."

Grim indeed - I've read a fair amount of McGahern, and preferred his early novels 'The Barracks' and 'The Dark', which I'm pretty sure contained a lot of autobiographical material. (I think I read that somewhere, but it also 'feels as if...') Somehow, although they were still interesting, the later novels (from what I recall) felt a bit slower paced and less clearly focused - but there were long gaps between publications, and also between my reading of the books, so that impression may be mistaken.

CCCubbon wrote: "I can make the print larger and darker so that is another couple of pluses..."

These eyesight problems will come to many (most?) of us if we live long enough, unfortunately... I hope your problem is being stalled successfully, at least.

As you may recall, my mother went from being able to drive (at 95) to being unable to even read the largest font size on a Kindle (at 98) and has been gorging on audiobooks for the last year or so, having been listed for a complex cataract op. last April...

Hallelujah! A cancellation has occurred in the 'list', and she will now be seen on Monday! Fingers crossed for the outcome....

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I can make the print larger and darker so that is another couple of pluses..."

These eyesight problems will come to many (most?) of us if we live long enough, unfortunately... I h..."

Definitely. 🤞🤞🤞🤞

CCCubbon wrote: "I am not progressing very fast with my voyages around the Pacific Ocean in The Boundless Sea by David Abulafia, slowly making my way from island to island. ..."

I've only read this first Pacific section of The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans, CC, and I loved it. Such awe-inspiring skills they had. I'm blown away by how they mapped a sea more easily than the way we map land. I can't remember if the book includes any illustrations of Pacific wave (as in sea waves) art. I know I've seen some somewhere. Btw, I never post about non fiction because my brain can't cope with reading a whole book cover to cover at one time. I make tiny nibbling inroads over the years. Likewise, I never remember any of it once I've closed the cover. Even when it's immediately after. I say this only to inform you that there's not much good asking me anything about the book!

Andy wrote: "The Circumcision by György Dalos."

A thematic follow-up to this might be Kingsley Amis' The Alteration, whose young hero is also contemplating surgery in the same vicinity, though one of a somewhat more radical nature.

Machenbach wrote: "Ah, that's a shame. Sorry if I gave you any false hope. I really thought Jonkers might bite.."

Don't feel bad Mach I was of exactly the same mind as you regarding what to ask for, and Jonkers was one who bit, but got away, as it were.

So an hour or two ago I sent off details to an auction house and will be interested to see what they come back with. Honestly, if there's no one who wants it, it isn't worth even what I paid for it, is it? So Plan C might be in the offing.

Berkley wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Milder start to Feb, my birthday month, small dibs and dabs of snowdrops emerging...

Reading is highly rewarding in 2022 so far, with the following books:

Southern Steel
...

Voyage ..."

hope you enjoy them all Berkley!

Machenbach wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I launched out into the first few pages of Didion's "Play as it Lays," the first of her fiction I've tried."

I can't 'get' Didion. It's OK, but I just don't get the fuss."

I read "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" last year and i liked it, the style and the topics, though i had hated one of her novels i read a few years before. "Slouching" covers a lot of SoCal(Southern California) stories and events, her approach is quite cool and detached but worth reading.

Bill wrote: "Andy wrote: "The Circumcision by György Dalos."


A thematic follow-up to this might be Kingsley Amis' The Alteration, whose young hero is also contemplating surgery in the same vicinity, though one of a somewhat more radical nature."

I meant to read that many years ago when I was in the middle of my Kingsley Amis period but never got around to it. I did like his other excursion into speculative fiction (in the loosest sense), Russian Hide and Seek, about a near future (I think?) in which Britain is occupied by Soviet military forces - though I think his conservative political leanings were more to the fore in both these novels than in his earlier work.

It would be a shame to lose Ersatz TLS, as we are quite a community now and the Guardian is still not quite offering what it did before, but i agree we should see how the traffic between the two sites goes and whether this any significant migration back to the G

But it is a huge and well deserved result from all Hushs time spent chasing the elusive G round the table! Thanks again Hush

Where is the Guardian posting the new books page? Apologies if someone has asked before and its been answered!

Phenotypes by Paulo Scott was very much out of my usual reading zone. A modern novel, written in Portuguese by a Brazilian author, set in Brazil during the years 1984 to the present day. And I only read it because of the Guardian review of January 2nd. On the strength of that review I ordered it from the Guardian Bookshop, to help their finances just a bit (and incidentally I’ve kept my promise to resubscribe so I’m now back in their fold).

I was not disappointed. The translation by Daniel Hahn reads really well. The story is good - when you actually piece all the bits together - as it’s one of those books which I love where you have to concentrate to work out what happened when. My only quibble is that most of it takes place in a real Brazilian town, Porto Alegre, and the writer describes every single road and junction that he uses to get about. Suppose I wrote a novel and kept mentioning all the streets around Clapham Junction � what’s the point? What does it add to the story? No map provided, by the way!

If you’ve read the Guardian review you’ll know the book’s about social class and race (more specifically skin colour, which I imagine varies a lot more in Brazil because of inter-marriage between several ethnicities to start with) plus the politics of Brazil. Though that country is different from the UK and US these are themes which we can all identify with, so it’s interesting to get a view on life there, and see the universality of some of their problems. Plus it’s a well thought out story told in a little over 200 pages so it was a real pleasure for me to read it in a couple of days, instead having my usual 500-pager on the go and continually forgetting where I’ve got to in the story.

PS I've been trying to hone this so I can put it here and in the new WWR thread but I somehow feel it's OK here but I'm dubious about putting it in the big wide Graun world - dunno why, does anyone else feel there's a difference between what you'd post here and there?

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "Phenotypes by Paulo Scott was very much out of my usual reading zone. A modern novel, written in Portuguese by a Brazilian author, set in Brazil during the years 1984 to the present day. And I only..."

Luso Tropicalism is a topic worth readng about relating to the Portugese "Ultramar" and the unique way that 20th century colonial Portugal tried to establish a means of attaching overseas posessions to the motherland. While Brazil was no longer part of the "Ultramar" the legacy of Portugese colonialism was still strong and sociologist Gilberto Freyre coined the term

"The interpretation of those who want to place me among the sociologists or anthropologists who said prejudice of race among the Portuguese or the Brazilians never existed is extreme. What I have always suggested is that such prejudice is minimal... when compared to that which is still in place elsewhere, where laws still regulate relations between Europeans and other groups".

"It is not that racial prejudice or social prejudice related to complexion are absent in Brazil. They exist. But no one here would have thought of "white-only" Churches. No one in Brazil would have thought of laws against interracial marriage ... Fraternal spirit is stronger among Brazilians than racial prejudice, colour, class or religion. It is true that equality has not been reached since the end of slavery.... There was racial prejudice among plantation owners, there was social distance between the masters and the slaves, between whites and blacks.... But few wealthy Brazilians were as concerned with racial purity as the majority were in the Old South".

FrancesBurgundy wrote: "I've been trying to hone this so I can put it here and in the new WWR thread but I somehow feel it's OK here but I'm dubious about putting it in the big wide Graun world - dunno why, does anyone else feel there's a difference between what you'd post here and there?"

Ah, that's funny because I remember thinking the opposite at first (and I wasn't the only one), since here you felt far less "anonymous" and perhaps under more scrutiny. I'd say this is maybe a bit comparable to cinema vs theatre: one has got a more immediate but smaller audience, while the other is larger but more anonymous somehow, so less intimidating. I guess we all got a bit rusty, but it feels fine after taking the plunge 😊. Plus it's mainly familiar faces anyway!

(On the subject of THAT book, would it be worth at all approaching some avowed fans such as Ian McEwan or Julian Barnes...?)

Hushpuppy wrote: "Ah, that's funny because I remember thinking the opposite at first (and I wasn't the only one), since here you felt far less "anonymous" and perhaps under more scrutiny..."

I felt exactly that but the opposite! I thought, well they know me here and they'll forgive any 'mistakes' - of PCness, whatever - but those 'strangers' who are now on WWR might start trolling me!

And thanks for the suggestion re the book but somehow I think not. It might look a bit desperate, which I'm not. Honest!

I think I mentioned along the way that I disliked McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun (and Mach, on the contrary, rated it highly). He's a beautiful writer and by all accounts was a lovely man - I know someone who knew him well (who doesn't know someone in Ireland who knows someone else well?) - but some of his oeuvre is fairly bleak alright.

I'd like to reassure AB76 that much though there is a dark and grim history, the repercussions of which are still writ large in some quarters, not all Irish people were being chased around the place by villainous priests and living lives of inestimable misery. My tongue (or kidney for the day that's in it) is in my cheek of course AB.

Reen wrote: "I think I mentioned along the way that I disliked McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun (and Mach, on the contrary, rated it highly). He's a beautiful writer and by all accounts was a lovely..."

haha, i am a big fan of contemporary Eire and have enjoyed many lovely visits. i think you may like my favourite novel of 2021 "The Hungry Grass" by Richard Power(1969) A darkly comic tale, set in Wicklow in the 1960s, an old priest reviews his life and his experiences

In recognition of the centenary of its publication, here's an excerpt from the Official Report of today's Seanad (our Senate/Upper House of Parliament) proceedings from Senator David Norris, Joycean scholar and civil rights activist. Maybe a nugget some of you might be interested in.

"I would not claim to be the greatest Joyce scholar. I would award that to my great friend Fritz Senn in Zürich who is 90 years old and still keeping his students happy. It is a very important and happy day. As Samuel Beckett might have replied, it is a happy day because it is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses. In the early 1920s James Joyce was in Sylvia Beach's bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, bemoaning the fact that he could not find a publisher for Ulysses. I remember Sylvia Beach very well. She was a tiny bird-like little American woman, but a woman of great fortitude and steel. She offered to publish it and Joyce took up her offer. So it was that 100 years ago today Ulysses was published.

What a remarkable book. Virginia Woolf had outlined the design for stream of consciousness in, I think, The Common Reader. However, she never did it herself. She wrote the prescription; Joyce fulfilled the medicine. He was very superstitious and so it was published on his birthday, 2 February 1922. Sylvia Beach went to the railway station and collected the first two copies, one for the window of her shop and one for James Joyce. When Joyce opened it, he discovered that the printer in Dijon, Darantière, had decided to correct Joyce's manuscript. For example, there was a list of characters, famous Irish characters ranging over the centuries, including Michael Angelo Hayes. Darantière thought "Michelangelo?" and so put "Michelangelo, Hayes", not realising that Michael Angelo Hayes was a real person known to Joyce and had founded the Dublin Photographic Society. That partly explains the 5,000 errors that were claimed to be in Ulysses. Whatever about the errors, it is a wonderful life-enhancing book and we should give thanks to James Joyce for having written it and having given us so much pleasure."

AB76 wrote: "Reen wrote: "I think I mentioned along the way that I disliked McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun (and Mach, on the contrary, rated it highly). He's a beautiful writer and by all accounts..."

That's funny... I read a few pages of that when I was a child. It was on the shelves in my father's office. We had moved house and he'd had some shelves built in along one wall. We thought it was the height of fancy. Something of the cover of that book and its name intrigued me. I wondered I suppose, in a childlike way, how grass could be hungry. I'd often pester him with these "existential" questions as he rattled off something on his typewriter (he was a journalist). To get me out from under his feet, he sometimes gave me a book of poetry and told me to go off and learn something. I had quite the fluency in daffodil poems at the tender age of eight. It was probably the only word I understood. Anyway, I may consider a return to The Hungry Grass, which I wouldn't be surprised to find is in a box in the attic with my "early poetry" archive and my letters to Santa Claus to whom I remarked one year on the remarkable similarity between his handwriting and my father's. Ah the innocence of youth.

I'm re-reading Robertson Davies' "What's Bred in the Bone," a big, rich novel that reflects Davies' love of Dickens-- and his respect for Irish Gothic mystery writer Sheridan Le Fanu!

Davies once defined a "bildungsroman" as "a story of the growth of the spirit" of the main character. This one shows the growth of a painter's spirit, but Paul Cornish's spirit takes some odd twists and turns.