Somewhat belated late summer reading list

There were several things that contributed to the relaxation and enjoyment we shared during our recent holidays on the French and Belgian coasts. One of them was the complete absence of any internet connection and, in our second week, of any media source whatsoever.

Another key thing was doing a lot of reading, but, importantly, for the most part reading that had little or nothing to do with 'work'. Given the absence of any forms of multimedia distraction and the presence of either a quiet beach or an even quieter semi-remote farmhouse, it was a relief to rediscover that now all-too-rare commodity of deep focus. 

My reading list for those two weeks ended up being shorter than I had hoped, but I might have been a bit ambitious:

• Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren (I had started this one before we left: given that it's a bit of a slog -- an interesting slog, yes, but still pretty heavy going -- I was happy to have plenty of time to race through the last few hundred pages) 
• Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget
• Paul Fussell, Class: A Guide through the American Status System
• James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime
• Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (first time, I must admit)
• James Salter, Light Years
• James Salter, All That Is
• and, more or less intermixed among them all, Thinking the Twentieth Century by Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder.

As usual with holiday reading, I tend to mix in things I know and like quite well (Light Years, Class) with new things that are long-time entries on my meaning-to-read list (Brideshead) combined with a few random choices that more or less occur to me in the weeks before we leave (everything else).

I thought everything was worthwhile and absorbing, but the main reading joys of this journey were Judt and Snyder's collection of interviews on twentieth-century intellectual history and the novels by Salter.(And, I'd give an honourable mention, Paul Fussell's Class, which I've now read three times at different points in my life: while a bit dated in terms of some of its specifics -- it is, after all, now 30 years old -- it gets a vast amount fundamentally right. It's an unsettling experience, though, to have so many of your own family's class signifiers described in such unrelentingly perfect detail by a complete stranger.)

For an overview of several streams of twentieth-century thought (especially those having to do with Marxism, which, however you feel about it, is an essential part of understanding the twentieth century), I would highly recommend the Judt and Snyder book. It is, however, partly biographical and loosely structured around different phases in the life of Tony Judt, who -- very sadly -- died a few years ago at a far too young age. This mix might put some people off (especially if you're not familiar with Judt's other work). He had an interesting life, however, and as the book is about the intellectual development of various thinkers and interpreters of society, culture and history, the two streams in it tend to mix quite smoothly, I thought.

That is, if you're interested in two historians talking about intellectuals. I happen to like that kind of thing. (Further commentary on the book in this brief piece at the New Yorker.)

The Salter novels are in a very different key. I had read Light Years a couple of years ago and enjoyed it very much. But reading these three novels was much more of a serious plunge into Salter's very unique style.

I can do no better than to point you to James Meek's recent LRB essay on Salter, which is actually what inspired me to re-read Light Years and to try out the other two.

This is the section that focuses on Light Years:

In Light Years, Salter’s mastery of time, his themes of nobility, ruthlessness and failure in the quest for love and glory, his interest in the erotic and the aesthetics of pleasure, achieve their richest realisation. To the portrayal of moments, seasons and years is added the portrayal of entire adult lives, Viri’s and Nedra’s, in a long marriage and its aftermath. [...]

But the story, what the book is ‘about’, matters less than what the book is: an extraordinary replication not of the experience of a marriage but of the memory of the experience of a marriage. For while we remember stories, memory is not a story. Salter strips out the narrative transitions and explanations and contextualisations, the novelistic linkages that don’t exist in our actual memories, to leave us with a set of remembered fragments, some bright, some ugly, some bafflingly trivial, that don’t easily connect and can’t be put together as a whole, except in the sense of chronology, and in the sense that they are all that remains. Over these surviving fragments of the past, where the distinction between the unique and the repeated is blurred, Salter sets the characters’ reflections hovering, in the way our present thoughts will flutter back to burnish and brood over, and find connections between, the same small set of memories we get to keep....

(I think it was this rather melancholic, fragmented sense of memory that made me think, while reading all three books, of the films of Terrence Malick, which I like very much and about which there was also recently a strikingly good LRB essay by Gilberto Perez.)

I think that Light Years remains my favourite of the three.   

We've actually been back for a few weeks, and the reading material has since been much more work-related.

Which is also interesting, though in a different way: one that I hope to get around to talking about here at some point.

But reader, I tell you: being offline for a few weeks was good for my soul.

There might be more periods like that in the future.

Something: still better than nothing

Today, thanks to Francis for the reminder, is Europe Day.


Admittedly, the old continent is at the moment a bit tied up in unpleasant matters such as wrangling over how much bailing out Greece is going to cost or whether the borders should (temporarily, they say) go up again. 


So, perhaps a good time to recall something I posted a bit more than a year ago: a quote from Tony Judt.

To their own surprise and occasional consternation, Europeans have begun to do this: to create a bond between human beings that transcends older boundaries and to make out of these new institutional forms something that really is a community. They don't always do it very well, and there is still considerable nostalgia in certain quarters for those old frontiers. But something is better than nothing; and nothing is just what we shall be left with if the fragile international accords, treaties, agencies, laws and institutions that we have erected since 1945 are allowed to rot and decline -- or, worse, are deliberately brought low. As things now stand, boundary breaking and community making are something that Europeans are doing better than anyone else.

Well...'better'...um...maybe not at the moment, but one can always hope for improvement. 

Happy Europe Day!

Jetzt verschlungen vom Wald, jetzt an den Bergen hinauf

As far as I can tell, there seems to be little established tradition about how one should celebrate the Day of German Unity.

We did so in what seems as appropriate a way as any: going for a hike through a nearby forest, the sort of place where the German soul feels most at home.

A place rather like this:

Since the forest was so dark (even on a sunny day), most of my shots turned out blurry...except for this one. Which I feel sort of makes up for the others.

The route we took was 'Michel's Vitaltour', whose name derives in part from the 'German Michel' figure associated, according to some arguments, with our region (and with Stromberg -- where the route begins and ends -- in particular).

At 13.2km (with a lot of ups and downs...though I noted the ups more than the downs), it was a good way to spend our Sunday morning.

 Just off to the left of this image and further along the path was a small gathering featuring not only a stand selling grilled steak but also a brass band. Sadly, they stopped playing and took a break just before we got there.

A few further photos can be seen at our Flickr page.



(Title reference)

A few things that I learned on vacation

1. It’s good to get away. Away, in particular from the computer. We spend probably a majority of our waking hours every day staring at screens and typing. While in France, however, we were online for about a total of an hour over 2 weeks. This is partly because of the curious absence of internet cafés in this part of the world, which has mystified me ever since I started going there some years ago.

I found the withdrawal difficult for the first two days but then I spent long periods forgetting that the internet exists.

And, as much as I love the internet, this was a Very Good Thing.

But nothing personal, you understand.

2. Jacques Demy was a genius. Not only did he make mind-bendingly beautiful The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) but -- thanks to Arte -- we can also report that his The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) is just the thing for getting into that summer vacation state of mind.

Just take a look:



I mean, really: what more do you want?



3. Beaches are a wonderful invention. One has a very different outlook on life when, well, the outlook is like this.

Or this.

And when the most exciting thing that happens all week is the occasional docking of a dredger, you can be reasonably sure that you’re achieving the right level of relaxation.

(Sharp eyes will note that this vessel is the brilliantly named ‘Britannia Beaver’. Further comment, I think, would be superfluous)

4. Reading is a joy. This may seem obvious; however, I mean 'reading' in the sense of ‘reading something from beginning to end for the pure enjoyment of doing so and being able to linger over the better parts for as long as you like while pleasantly lost in thought’ and not, ‘desperately skimming a book or article to get what I need out of it in the shortest time possible.’

I (and we) spend a lot of time doing the latter and not nearly enough doing the former.

And they are very different experiences.

The joy is only increased by being able to focus on beautiful prose, of course, and I thank Erich Kästner, Ian McEwan and Thomas Mann for providing it.

(And, in Herr Mann’s case, in such enormous quantities: Buddenbrooks is pretty epic, and its German – parts of which are in local dialect or a bit archaic or both – is not the easiest for a non-native speaker used to humbler fare. However, it’s a gripping read, both deeply moving and very, very funny. I’m now encouraged to take on Magic Mountain: any advice? For those of you who're looking more simple -- but still beautifully written -- German reading, I can't recommend Erich Kästner's Emil books too highly. They're meant for children, apparently, but I found them to be a delight.)

Finally: The French, in their creativity, civilisation and love of state-supported civic life, have managed to combine point #3 and point #4 by putting libraries on the beach.

How awesome, dear reader, is France!?

Très awesome!

En Route Greetings

Well, here we are at Chateau Bakewell in Carcassonne, sending you a quick musical missive before dinner. I don`t know how Herman Dune could have escaped our notice for so long ... I guess we have a bit of catching up to do!




Herman Dune, "Not on Top"

Darwin Day 2008

It is Darwin Day, once again, and I have nothing entirely new to add to the festivities.

Other than to point once again to this amazing handwritten graphic, in which Darwin helped himself to work out the beautiful, elegant and highly explanatory theory of descent with modification. As Richard Dawkins has observed, there are few theories that have given more bang for so little buck.

(Our Richard didn't put it quite so vulgarly, of course.)

It's difficult to know what to do on Darwin Day (Does one dance? Eat something special? Get drunk?), other than to mention that it is Darwin Day.

I can't think of a better thing to do than to support those humble institutions that promote real knowledge about science and evolution in particular.

One of my personal choices is the Grant Museum of Zoology in London. There is a personal connection there, as I often stay in Bloomsbury when I'm in that city and the museum is then right around the corner. It's a tiny place, crammed with skulls, bones and preserved critters of all varieties. But it's quite a lovely little oasis for quiet contemplation in a city that is increasingly hectic, superficial and loud.

They also allow you to 'adopt' a specimen. I've done this for one of their axolotls, about which I've come to feel quite attached. So please go and see him if you have a chance.

And, if you feel so inclined, become a member yourself.

Happy Darwin Day!

Happy (Cultural) Christmas

Like Richard Dawkins, we are to some extent 'cultural Christians' and will be exchanging a few gifts later this eve. (As well as taking part in some other general merry-making over the next couple of days.)

After all, even in officially atheist Soviet contexts, there seemed to have been for a little seasonal whoopee amongst the striving for a more revolutionary (or at least a more futuristic) future.


(And while we're at it, here's a nice MarX-mas postcard from the International Institute for Social History.)

Groovy.

We're sorry for the light posting over the last few days, but we've been focused on the kind of writing that has some relevance in our professional lives.

Thus, we've been neglecting you. For that, we apologise.

And promise to improve.

But until then, we wish all our readers and friends a happy and healthy holiday season, whatever that holiday might be.

Bayern: Wo die Bäume aus Holz sind

Both of us here at OD have intimate (no, not that kind of intimate...) affinities to that blessed piece of earth known by the humble name of the Free State of Bavaria. We know of its wondrous landscapes, its delicious cuisine (if you're not a vegetarian), its charming people and its amusing accents.

The Wife, in fact, can sing most parts of the Bavarian state anthem, having been thoroughly indoctrinated at a tender and impressionable age. And a catchy little ditty it is.

Thus, nobody needs to tell us about the many attractions to be found and joys to be had in the state that I've somehow come to think of as Germany's Texas.

However, the Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Transport and Technology seems to feel that their homeland is unappreciated, and they've undertaken (no doubt at great expense) an ad campaign organised around the snappy slogan 'Bavaria, where progress is a tradition.'

Now, that's all well and good, and the region is certainly not short of either progress or tradition.

Nevertheless, they may wish to re-think the implications of some of their advertising materials.

Behold the exciting (yet somehow disturbing) interplay of text and image:


(Source: Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Transport and Technology, Bayern/Bavaria: Where Progress is a Tradition, München, no date, p. 22.)

Yes...'Bavaria -- where a holiday becomes an adventure.'

The kind that you'll never, ever forget.

Of course, there's more to Bavaria than public crucifixions. (And sexy political scandals.)

There is, as we said, the great food.

And the...interesting...restaurants.



Mahlzeit!

(From Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus)

More here.

Tour de France

It's that time of year again, when The Wife and I disappear into the French countryside and all you people will have to find some other way of amusing yourselves till sometime in mid September.

Before we're off, though, I wanted to share this photo, taken in our backyard, which is, I think we can all agree, very nice.



So, it's off to the Normandy coast tomorrow, where the seafood is plentiful and the beaches can be quite pebbly. But the place we head to is relatively out of the way and quiet, which is just what we're looking for, in order--among other things--to finally get some rest. And some reading done.

In the next eighteen days, we've a lot before us. Me, for instance, I hope to tackle...

Jack London, The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
Jim Crace, Being Dead
Doris Lessing, The Sweetest Dream
Harlan Ellison, Strange Wine
Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
China Miéville, Perdido Street Station

This combines things I've already read but feel I should revisit (Jack London), things I haven't read but feel I should, but know that I will hate, (Ayn Rand) and things I think I should read for the first time since I think I'll find them good (all the rest).

Rand is receiving my attention because the fiftieth anniversary of The Worst Fucking Novel Ever Written (Atlas Shrugged) is coming up and I want to be better prepared to say something nasty about that (which doesn't actually involve reading all of Atlas Shrugged).

I'm taking Lessing along since I liked The Good Terrorist so much that I want to continue reading things in that vein.

Crace's book takes place on a beach and looks disturbing. What more need be said?

The other have their own reasons for coming along.

The Wife, for her part, plans to read the following:

William Boyd, Restless
Jim Crace, Six
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Toby Litt, Corpsing
Alexander McCall Smith, The Two and a Half (can't do the numbers on here) Pillars of Wisdom.


She notes:

Do I need to explain why? Oh well ... I bought the Boyd on an amazon.co.uk (look out -- product placement!) recommendation, but didn't manage to read it. Now's the time for rampant entertainment.

Crace is an author I should be reading more (like Adam Thorpe), but sadly don't. So there. When John has finished Being Dead I shall turn to that and will have filled that embarrassing gap in my contemporary fiction knowledge.

I return to Madame B. after a long, long, long time of reading it, thinking that it's about time I did that.

Corpsing was recommended to me by the author himself when I talked to him about my plan for a seminar on revenge. That's work, then, really, and comes with a big notebook.

And McCall Smith's book -- about an idiosyncratic academic -- might be a good segue into the big chill out. I will start with that.

If you find all this a wee bit too masculine -- and maybe bloody (not as bad as The Husband's Levi-reading): somewhere in the French-speaking world I will also buy this month's Marie Claire and peruse the beauty tips, thereby doing my bit to uphold the old phallocratic, patriarchal and logocentric order.

I might buy some French lipstick, too!!! And put it on!

Oh, and I will also take the latest Andrew Bird album bought sometime in late spring which I haven't really had enough time to listen to. I need an alternative to The Husband's rather monotonous choice -- which is The Grateful Dead, The Grateful Dead ... and The Grateful Dead.

No, hang on: he's just told me that he will take another album after all. Hoorah! It's The Gang of Four. Oh, and he's adding Kula Shaker (have I said that the new album sounds quite good? This one is an old one, though). And The Streets. And Robyn Hitchcock.

Ain't we eclectic. The endless, empty highways of France will be alive with the manifold sounds of music.

Wish us well!