Ersatz TLS discussion

After a miserable, year-long summer in the Pacific Northwest, fall is in the air and not a moment too soon. Crisp mornings, warm afternoons, and a day or two now and then when the air is clear of forest-fire smoke and ash.




Literary Hub has a created a decision-tree for choosing your next "big fall book":

https://lithub.com/which-big-fall-boo...

I didn't need to follow the tree to pre-order mine - These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett and Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout. Can't wait! Anyone else looking at a big new book for the season?

Here's a wiki list of books about the 9/11 attacks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

I spy a few I've read, a few I intend to read. Not right away, though. I'm still recovering from the weekend.

Just for kicks, I decided to see what we were all talking about at the real TLS, the week of September 9th, 2019:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

Hope I didn't interrupt anyone mid-post. Feel free to bring any open discussions over here to the new thread

I was reading the fifth burial in Alice Roberts’ Ancestor book last night and was interested to note that the corn marigold was found in Scottish neolithic deposits in the Hebrides. She wrote that it was an ancient plant (weed) probably introduced with barley from Asia and that it was now a threatened species after six thousand years.

Determined to find out more this morning I found a picture of one (below) and learned that it was once widespread but has succumbed to farming methods and herbicides.

The flowers are borne singly on stems, bright golden yellow in arable open land. Bees, butterflies and moths love it as a food source and the young shoots eaten as a vegetable in the Far East.

It has several other names; gold, golden cornflower, golden daisy, sunflower, yellow bottle, yellow horse daisy, yellow moons, yellow ox-eye, boodle, bozel, bozzum and buddle. Think I like yellow moons best.

As it was so common until before WW2 there are several Anglo Saxon place names associated with corn marigolds;
Goldhanger in Essex; Goldor on Oxfordshire; Golding in Shropshire; Goodall in Yorkshire and Goltho in Lincolnshire ( I have been wondering where that odd name came from)

Who’d have thought a once common weed could have so many names. I cannot remember seeing any but shall look out now. Guess such flowers would be less noticeable amongst the ragwort that spreads itself mightily.


https://postimg.cc/fJ2qkmj1

Glad to see that the Pacific NW will finally be over its sticky foul summer LL and i like the idea of the 2019 flashback!

In the shires its a comfortable benign mid september feel in the air, temps max 19c, min 14c, all rather mild for what can usually be the first little stabs of autumn chill.

I can hear leaves falling as it type(only one or two), here are my current reads:

A Desert Named Peace is about the french invasion of the Southern Algerian Sahara in the 19th century(1840s to 1901) and the violence connected with it. Its been on my pile for a while and its superb, mixing literary travel observations, military and political analysis with the intellectual debate over the meaning of colonialism and the fate of the colonised.

The Method by Juli Zeh is my modern novel, a sort of sci-fi FitBit nightmare world, where sleep and exercise data needs submitting to the omnipotent state. Very readable so far..

A Prison Diary Vol 1 by Jeffrey Archer is a good read, 20 years ago he was incarcerated in Bellmarsh Prison and he manages to maintain a witty, slightly downbeat style, as he serves time for the crime of perjury

Going to start A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo later, a 1906 Italian feminist novel recently translated by Penguin.

I greatly enjoyed watching Emma Radacanu win the US Open but was dismayed by the american crowd at times.

BTW...did Swelter come accross to Ersatz with us, or do i know him/her by a different name now>?

AB76 wrote: BTW...did Swelter come accross to Ersatz with us, or do i know him/her by a different name now>?

Ehem....! Yes he did. Calls himself Bill now.

Thank you for the intro, Ll - and thank you for drawing my attention to Oh, William! I'd missed that. It's now on my wish list, together with the Patchett that I had seen. And also Fight Night by Myriam Toews and Anne Tyler's French Braid which will be a longer wait.

Thank you for opening the new book week! I like the decision-tree, though eTL&S (forest) still beats them all, I'd say. I have not read up on earlier TL&S years before I joined, looks like this might be an entertaining thing to do!

Hope you, LL, and everyone will have a lovely colourful autumn with lots of good autumn breezes. I am sorry I wrote nothing in memory of 9/11. It is unforgettable, though. Hope you will recover from the weekend soon.

__________________________________________


Joining in with book haul news - I did it (again).

Mr B and I went to visit a neighbouring city today, exploring one of its book shops, amongst other things. It found full approval with us, as you may see from the photographic evidence. This is my haul:

I am most intrigued by Books Do Furnish A Painting, on, yep, books in paintings, and which I bought in a lovely translated version (German title: Von Büchern in Bildern). Normally, I would have ordered the English-language original, but I just had to take it with me. (Feel free to tell me that I have bad impulse control regarding books any time! I would agree.)





Looking forward to an apparently light-hearted Finnish black comedy read as well: Miika Nousiainen' s Vadelmavenepakolainen, on a Finnish man who just feels Swedish and wants to achieve being Swedish at all costs.

When Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, she gave her lecture on "The Tender Narrator", https://culture.pl/en/article/olga-to..., and now I have the text in print, also accompanied by a short piece on "How Translators Save the World". Ha. Do go ahead, dear translators, please!

The brief Geschichte der Sklaverei (A History of Slavery) was published this year and includes a chapter on slavery today. (Beck Wissen is a very successful series of knowledgeable short books on all sorts of topics, written by scholars, maybe comparable to the series "A Very Short Introduction" by Oxford University Press. Greatly enjoyed the one on the Grail, which included Monty Python, of course, and not a lot of Dan Brown.)

Edit: Confused the Finnish-Swedish transit.

Gpfr wrote: "Thank you for the intro, Ll - and thank you for drawing my attention to Oh, William! I'd missed that. It's now on my wish list, together with the Patchett that I had seen. And also [book:Fight Nigh..."

And thank you for the Toews...I'd missed that one! I adore her.

I can't believe how Ann Tyler keeps going!

RE: Sandya wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "I thought the Bostonians was a bit of a stinker - I'm backed up by the general critical and commercial response, but F.R. Leavis apparently thought it was amazing..."

while i have only read The Turn of the Screw, i have always been peturbed about anything else by James as i have memories of GSCE/A LEVEL teaching force feeding more readable 19th century artists down my throat. I quickly re-discovered how good those authors were but James remained distant to me.

I have a vision of a pedantic,fastidious and rather dull man who wanted to be English and spent his whole writing career obsessed with style and form. I may be wrong....i think "Washington Square" might be an xmas read, dont think i can fit it in before

REPLY: I did try Turn of the Screw as I enjoy horror, but I hated it and the one movie made of it that I saw. I found it tedious and not scary at all. Totally overrated. Give me HP Lovecraft any day. Ghost stories are mostly silly anyway.

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: BTW...did Swelter come accross to Ersatz with us, or do i know him/her by a different name now>?

Ehem....! Yes he did. Calls himself Bill now."

ahh..of course...ta Georg

Sandya wrote: "RE: Sandya wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "I thought the Bostonians was a bit of a stinker - I'm backed up by the general critical and commercial response, but F.R. Leavis apparently tho..."

Lovecraft is on my list Sandya, i'm a huge fan of Arthur Machen and he had an influence on Lovecraft.

its a crying shame that Algernon Blackwood has so many POD versions of his books but no well curated Penguin Classic or OUP edition

AB76 wrote: "Sandya wrote: "RE: Sandya wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "I thought the Bostonians was a bit of a stinker - I'm backed up by the general critical and commercial response, but F.R. Leavis..."

I adore Arthur Machen too! The Great God Pan!! The White People!! The Novel of the Black Seal!!! The Novel of the White Powder!! When I get my hair done, my stylist always rubs this white powder into the top of my hair to keep it fluffy....I always ask for "The White Powder"-I don't think she has any idea.....

"N"-is the most mysterious of all Machen's stories..... "I believe that there is a perichoresis, an interpenetration. It is possible, indeed that we three are now sitting among desolate rocks, ....by bitter streams..... And with what companions?..."" #shudders.

I also enjoy WH Hodgson, Blackwood, Vernon Lee, J. Sheridan le Fanu, Mrs. Gaskell, and others from that period, MR James, Walter de la Mare (Seaton's Aunt and the supreme one-Alice's Godmother...incredibly creepy if you think about it) etc etc. All are head and shoulders better than Henry James.

AB76 wrote: "Glad to see that the Pacific NW will finally be over its sticky foul summer LL and i like the idea of the 2019 flashback!

In the shires its a comfortable benign mid september feel in the air, temp..."

Summer is really over here (175ish miles north of Portland). I may have to turn on the heat come Friday! What a change.😊

MK wrote: "I may have to turn on the heat come Friday! ..."

I'm wearing a sweater...how strange!

Someone here asked about - . Sorry to say that I gave up around page 80. It might be advertised as political satire*, but I ended up thinking I was SO OVER Trump!

But I lied. I picked up Michael Wolff's from the library and am quite enjoying it.

If Trump said Hope Hicks was wearing pink when she had a purple shirt on, everyone around him would agree that it was pink. Also, once Trump made up his mind - that was it. He could not be dissuaded. A huge eye-roll when he wanted to stop vote counts while he was still ahead. And then there's Rudy, the albatross! Great fun and not at page 100 yet.

*Ms. Lipman should have read before attempting satire.

Sandya wrote: All are head and shoulders better than Henry James.

But "better" is relative, isn't it?

I disliked TLotR when I read it aged 18. I only read it because everybody started to speak in tongues derived from it. I have never had the wish to re-read it, but I would never say it is bad either. It is just not for me.

My weekend plans of getting at least one bag of mulch spread to combat the return of vinca in the back yard were thoroughly discombobulated by a near-by estate sale.

It started Friday and I stopped in near closing time. Mysteries on tables, chairs, bookcases! I managed to pick up a few paperbacks before closing time. Of course I went back Saturday and managed to pick up about 30 more books. This meant that I had to return on Sunday (1/2 price day!) and buy a couple of bookcases which will go into the closet with few clothes.

Now I am concerned about all the Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery magazines I saw. I hope they don't end up as recycle. (I was told the real estate agent has a connection to book buyers, but magazines have got to be an iffy purchase.)

As often happens, my ideas, picked up from general comments in various places, about a classic author whom I haven’t read have been considerably modified by reading that author. Misled by terms like “realism” and “naturalism”, I expected Émile Zola to stick pretty much to real-life circumstances, with characters and plots drawn from actual events. But I found Nana (translated by George Holden) something else altogether. While no doubt the many details in the book are drawn from the author’s close observation of contemporary society, the title character herself is a kind of mythical being – a woman of overwhelming and almost universally irresistible sexual allure. Perhaps there’s an influence of Poe in Zola’s willingness to let his characters unapologetically shift from being individuals into the embodiment of an abstraction.

I don’t know whether the parallel would have struck me without the recent eTL&S discussion of She: A History of Adventure, but Zola’s novel reminded me quite a bit of Rider Haggard’s romance. Nana is literally “she who must be obeyed” throughout the story, her slightest whim being fulfilled by her suitors, cost or inconvenience be damned. Count Muffat is her Leo Vincey, the man she wants and inevitably gets. (view spoiler)[Also, Nana’s sudden (for the reader, anyway) decay and death in the final chapter resembles the instantaneous decomposition of Ayesha, but is even more horrifically described. (Again, the influence of Poe?) (hide spoiler)]

For those interested: the Booker Prize shortlist will be announced live tomorrow at 4PM BST. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVoT...
Only 21 hours to go!

Bill wrote: "As often happens, my ideas, picked up from general comments in various places, about a classic author whom I haven’t read have been considerably modified by reading that author. Misled by terms lik..."

Haggard kept me enthralled with his storytelling in "She", a well worked adventure tale with a lot more gothic and unsettling moments than i expected. (Hotpotting, cannabilism and using mummified corpses as human torches)

Ayesha was a good character, well created with the mixture of beauty and menace, her fate was perhaps the most grotesque part of the book. Some of the themes and ideas were more interesting than i expected too.

I wouldnt say its as good as Dracula but it deserves its place in the Victorian colonial canon and has clearly influenced a lot of modern works of fantasy.

Machenbach wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "I’ve never seen any of the theatrical or cinematic (or operatic) versions of it, so I’m not quite sure how they accomplish the same thing: once empirical vision is allowed into p..."

love it when we find things like that in old books, any famous or soon to be famous actors in that 1952 version?

@Mach, I'm likely to order Pnin pretty soon. After that, what do you prefer out of Nabokov's Dozen and Knight Queen Knave? I've made a note of The Defence, but I'm likely to get the other two cheaper.

Machenbach wrote: "Perhaps you should see how you get on with Pnin"

Yes, I'm going to be careful and wait. I've heard mainly negative things about Nabokov's Collected Stories, but I'm hoping the 'dozen' is a more pleasant sample. I found Martin Amis's ranked list of Nabokov texts: https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/am... - and I'm cross-referencing between your views and my own first impressions of what the writing looks like.

Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "... any famous or soon to be famous actors in that 1952 version? "

Nope. I recognise Flora Robson, from ‘Black Narcissus’. And apparently one of the child actors, Jeremy Spenser, went..."

hahahaha

Georg wrote: "Sandya wrote: All are head and shoulders better than Henry James.

But "better" is relative, isn't it?

I disliked TLotR when I read it aged 18. I only read it because everybody started to speak in..."

I disagree. If "better" were merely relative any old junk would count as "literature". In my opinion Turn of the Screw is overrated. It may have a legitimate place in the history of horror stories, but it failed to frighten or even engage me. I didn't read it because everyone was talking about it-the reality is that nobody outside groups like this one and Eng Lit majors talks about it because nobody is reading it.

RE: "I’m not sure that I’d view The Portrait of a Lady as being quite about ‘arranged marriage’ per se; rather, it seems to me to set up a situation in which the desire for personal freedom is pitched against social conformity/expectations "

This is exactly how I perceived the situation I was in. It appeared to me to be identical to the situation in the book. Unlike Isabel Archer, I had not a penny to my name but I escaped. Isabel Archer simply didn't have what it took to do so. Even in the 1880s she could have. She certainly isn't my heroine and at that time in my life I did not find that the book had anything of value to offer me. It still doesn't.

As for Jane Austen, yes comedy and irony have their roles, but from where I stood, her books might just as well have been about Indian families marrying off superfluous daughters with the smallest dowry they could negotiate, and were just as reassuring- they weren't and aren't.

#22. American Empress. Nancy Rubin

My career has had 2 phases, first as a research scientist and second, since 1996, working with private foundations to raise money for research. A dear colleague and friend at a foundation which I have worked with for the last 20+ years suggested I read this biography of Marjorie Merriweather Post (MMP,1887-1973) since the foundation’s endowment originated in CW Post’s estate. My colleague’s father was MMP’s financial advisor. 4 degrees of separation.

This is a good readable biography of Mrs Post, the daughter of CW Post, who established Postum and built in it into a behemoth of American industry in the early 20th century. An only child, MMP was groomed to understand the business and while she could not be CEO in the 1920s, she was THE major stockholder, immensely wealthy, and involved in its transformation into General Foods Corp. She was by all accounts a very shrewd businesswoman who today would be running the company. The book covers her life in great detail-4 marriages, life as the Ambassadress to the USSR and Luxembourg, the mistress of several enormous houses, and perhaps the most admired of Washington DC hostesses. After awhile I did get tired of the endless descriptions of clothes, jewelry, big houses, and parties. What I found most interesting was her philanthropy, her liberal outlook, her involvement in the running of Postum and General Foods, her genuine warmth and generosity to those in need.

MMP is invariably described as a great beauty. I found her to be average looking. The very rich are inclined to overestimate themselves: a decent looking woman is “a great beauty”, someone who once made a joke “a great wit”. Until the Wall Street crash, MMP lived a life of Gilded Age grandeur. After the crash, while continuing her extraordinary lifestyle, she focused on using her money to benefit society. She proves my contention that a human being can only directly “consume” so much. After buying or building a big house in every city, having your own yacht and plane, collecting masses of art-well, you have to do something else with it all. So as far as I am concerned you may as well tax these vast fortunes from the get-go and turn the money to the benefit of society anyway, because that is what will happen anyway.

Ms Post built Mar A Lago. It saddened me to read that she very much wanted to leave it to the State of Florida, but the Gov shortsightedly thought it would be too expensive to run. She then discussed making it the Winter White House but these plans also ran aground after she died. Donald Trump bought it. With her liberal viewpoint, she would have turned in her grave.

I've pretty much decided to pass by Henry James's novels, at least for the near future, but I do have a collection of his ghost stories that I was thnking of choosing as one of my "Hallowe'en books" next month. Still haven't made up my mind yet, though, and not sure what I'll replace it with if I drop it.

Just finished the third volume of Henry Thomas Buckle's History of Civilization in England, which I enjoyed for Buckle's Victorian prose and for his approach to his subject matter: he thought battles and wars, politics and rulers as secondary matters to large-scale social changes, and especially the decreasing prestige of religion and the growing prominence of science and reason. So his unfinished history is somethng of a history of ideas. He's very good on the evils of superstition and too much power, social and political, being held by organised religion - though, just like an Englishman (of his era), he himself appears to accept rather uncritically the existence of a Creator.

This is one of three 19th-century books I've read recently about the rise of science and the Victorian idea of prgress, and I've found them all fascinating: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings, by Robert Chambers, and The Martyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade were the other two. The latter I first heard of in a Sherlock Holmes story, forget which one now, in which Holmes recommends it to Watson.

Bill wrote: "But I found Nana (translated by George Holden) something else altogether."

Did you like Nana? I'm a big fan. I think it's generally acknowledged that Zola may have increased novelty a little bit for entertainment purposes.

SydneyH wrote: "Bill wrote: "But I found Nana (translated by George Holden) something else altogether."

Did you like Nana? I'm a big fan. I think it's generally acknowledged that Zola may have increased novelty a..."

I was a huge Zola fan in my 20s and remain so, even if i havent read any of his for decade or so. Nana is a superb novel, like so many of his, my favourite is Germinal, closely followed by La Debacle

A Woman>by Sibilla Aleramo (1906) has started well, translated only a year ago by Penguin Classsics it is a feminist novel that reminds me of some of the Norvik Press translations of Swedish and Norwegian novels

There is a clever balance between knowing and un-knowing by the female narrator of her fate, that life in a middle class Italian family will not always be as easy or as celebrated once she comes of age. Her mother is a ghost at the feast of her early adolescence, she worships her father.

Pirandello was a fan of Aleramo's works, there is also class and geographical tensions in the book. Northern v Southern Italy, the working class women she sees and wonders how she would behave as their "mistress"

Machenbach wrote: "Sandya wrote: "RE: "Unlike Isabel Archer, I had not a penny to my name but I escaped. Isabel Archer simply didn't have what it took to do so. Even in the 1880s she could have. She certainly isn't m..."

How would you know that " 'though it's entirely possible that this kind of determination is exactly that which quickest collapses into meek acceptance once it meets a stronger force."? Have you ever had your back against the wall? I have, and nothing would have made me give in short of being locked up and even then.... I would have figured a way out.

Furthermore, male novelists are notorious for portraying women as basically weak. James is no better than the rest of them. That is what Isabel is in my opinion. Weak. Frankly, given James is writing about well-heeled parasites living lives of ease financed by private, probably slavery-derived, income, why should anyone care? Madame Merle? A courtesan. What does she contribute to society? Nothing. Various American heiresses with Italian titles bought via a fat dowry? The same. Slightly more nuanced versions of Consuelo Vanderbilt and about as interesting.

Why should James even be included in the canon of "Great Writers"? After reading his comment about the big house in the "n****** wilderness" of North Carolina, as far as I am concerned he should be removed from the Great Writers list. Why should POC read this shame-inducing stuff? We buy books too, you know. The world is changing, society is changing, and James is an embarrassing relic.

From Sam Jordison himself: https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

SydneyH wrote: "it's generally acknowledged that Zola may have increased novelty a little bit for entertainment purposes."

George Holden says Nana is "not simply a successful courtesan but a superhuman sex-symbol".

I liked Nana well enough, mainly for the presentation of French society right before the Franco-Prussian war, which seemed closely observed and for the most part truthfully reported.

But in addition to Nana’s “superhuman” qualities, I found some of the plotting improbable. The middle sections where Nana successively takes up with Fontan and Satin were apparently included because Zola wanted to include descriptions of a financially shaky abusive relationship and street prostitution, but for me these episodes seemed shoehorned into the story arc. While I could see Nana originally rising from such situations, having her sink back into them only to rise again even more spectacularly struck me as unlikely. Perhaps Zola was forced into this compromise by the Nan backstory that I understand he had already published an in earlier novel.

I look forward to reading The Masterpiece, which I already have a copy of, but unless it fully lives up to its English title, I don’t think I’ll be putting any more Zola on my TBR.

Sandya wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Sandya wrote: "RE: "Unlike Isabel Archer, I had not a penny to my name but I escaped. Isabel Archer simply didn't have what it took to do so. Even in the 1880s she could have. Sh..."

you are correct that the world and society is changing Sandya but i fear the Boris/Trump effect has turned things back in the last 2-3 years. Now questions can be asked that would be offensive about POC, the idea of teaching about racism in schools can be queried and in the UK the govt sends directives to universities and schools about how to deal with statues and the so called "woke" agenda.

Its regression from a dying stump of reactionary pigswill but its managed to knock the progress made offline in many quarters...

Sandya wrote: "#22. American Empress. Nancy Rubin

My career has had 2 phases, first as a research scientist and second, since 1996, working with private foundations to raise money for research. A dear colleague ..."

I am genuinely interested why you (seem to) have such a favourable opinion of MMP.
Did she earn the money she gave away to charities? If she didn't: how did her ancestors earn that money? If not from slavery maybe from exploiting other people? Does giving money accumulated in such a way for philanthropic causes have any merit?
Going by your description with all her "philanthropy" she still didn't want for anything that constitutes a "high life".
You have used the word "parasite". Was she not one of them? If not I would like to know why you do not think she was one.

Booker shortlist:

Bill wrote: "Booker shortlist"

Ta. No Spufford ...

Machenbach wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "@Mach, I'm likely to order Pnin pretty soon. After that, what do you prefer out of Nabokov's Dozen and Knight Queen Knave? I've made a note of The Defence, but I'm likely to get the..."

Nabokov's short story The Return of Chorb is a ferocious black comedy.

Bill wrote: "Booker shortlist:..."

Who let those Commonwealth writers in? I'm not going to stand for this, they could have short-listed three more American books, which as everyone knows are the only ones that matter.

Georg wrote: "Sandya wrote: "#22. American Empress. Nancy Rubin

My career has had 2 phases, first as a research scientist and second, since 1996, working with private foundations to raise money for research. A ..."

From inventing Grape Nuts in Battle Creek Michigan, which undoubtedly did involve underpaid agriculture. However, this is the time where large scale philanthropy in the US started, and that's something. It is also something that the foundation I mentioned funds research, very generously. Philanthropy in this style exists in the US because if you want something done in the land of limited gov. you need to raise the money to pay for it yourself.

I think it has more merit than spending the money on yourself, but as I pointed out, I am in favour of taxing the superrich for the reasons I listed. This is an implicit criticism of MMP.

I did not find her QUITE as perfect as the author did-for example, her looks were the subject of endless hyperbole, but she did pay her way throughout her life, so I don't think it is fair to call her a parasite. I leave that to Isabel Archer. She also pretty much ran Postum and was on the board of General Foods. This kept her very busy, at a time when most women, however wealthy, did not do these things. Do you seriously think YOU could do this? I am Chair of a non-profit Board and I couldnt.

I am leaving this group. It is not adding anything of any value to my life. I don't read fiction and most people here read nothing but. As one of the very few (2 at last count and the other is apparently hiding) POC in this group. I find that just like everywhere else, our views of mainstream literature are questioned, belittled, and sidelined. While my life experiences are not like yours, they cannot be relevant to the writers you all read and in no way can I be allowed to cast doubt on the value of the canon. I have spent my life reading seriously, but on my own so I can continue as I did before reading the books I enjoy. I have a business to run, planes to fly, things to do, books to read. I don't need this.

Sandya wrote: "I am leaving this group. It is not adding anything of any value to my life. I don't read fiction and most people here read nothing but. As one of the very few (2 at last count and the other is appa..."

I really hope that you change your mind Sandya, but I don't think you should hang around with a group that you don't feel comfortable with either. I have enjoyed reading about your interests and points of view. I was sad that as a group that we lost Alwynne, a good while ago, as she had had enough of us as well, as a group. I don't think it bodes well for all of our futures, if we constantly harry each other over different experiences and points of view, as if somehow the other persons perspective isn't valid.

I enjoy having a good debate, and will argue over stuff till the cows come home, but I hope that I would never say that another's experience isn't valid in the arguing, unless they are actually wildly distorting the facts, and as a scientist, I am sure that you have had sufficient dealing with that world to appreciate that facts are sacred, as this is what we can build our rational world upon, despite our differing experiences. So Sandya I hope you don't go, but if you do then I wish you well and happy flights in times ahead...

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew -
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Sandya wrote: "I am leaving this group"

Sandya, like Tam, I hope you reconsider. Of course you can question the canon, but you can't really be surprised if someone disagrees with you.

Tam wrote: "Sandya wrote: "I am leaving this group. It is not adding anything of any value to my life. I don't read fiction and most people here read nothing but. As one of the very few (2 at last count and th..."

I am with Tam. I chuckle and wonder if you have ever been involved with Next Door. I sometimes cannot believe some of the posters there.

I have learned, however, just to pass them on by as it doesn't take long to figure out there is someone whose ideas are quite different. I may be a white woman, but I also have had my share of people I would never hang around with.

Writing this, I am reminded of SFC Michael Stafford who I once worked with in my early professional days in computers. He is/was? one of the smartest people I have ever known. (Be patient, I'm working up to something.)

One day after work I was way down in the dumps. I had depended on someone for something, and they hadn't come through. Michael told me his life philosophy. Never have expectations. When you meet someone, start them at zero, then they can never let you down. This may sound harsh, but it has worked for me.

That said, I usually pass fiction (and the fiction posts) by, but give me a mystery (did I say I just bought 2 new-to-me bookcases?) or well-written history (for the general reader), and I am happy.

I confess I did once try to read a book by a Portuguese writer who won a Nobel. Two pages in - it was 'gimme a break' and done.

So Sandya, consider sticking around, and skipping that which needs to be skipped.

I agree with Tam, I hope you stay, Sandya, but recognise that you have to do what feels right for you.

For me, reading your recent discussions with Machenbach, Georg, and others, I never got the feeling that anyone was questioning your right to your own judgement. Disagreement over an interpretation isn't the same thing as a denial of an individual's right to their own views.

I hope you don't see my comments as a blasé dismissal of your concerns, and therefore as more belittlement. That certainly isn't my intention, nor was it, I feel sure, the intention of anyone else here, at least from the posts I've read.

I don't pretend to be capable of putting myself in your shoes as a PoC and fully appreciating how things look and feel from your perspective. I can try, and I can use whatever are the best approximations available to me from personal experience, but inevtiably, all my efforts are inadequate because I've never had to live with the same sort of discrimination and feelings of isolation.

Anyway, I'm going on about this at much greater length than I'd meant to do and probably not to much purpose, but I'd like to emphasise again that I do not believe for a moment that anyone was trying to dismiss or belittle your views or your right to question the established canon, even as they disagreed with some of your opinions - which does not mean that I deny the validity of your reaction.

There's lots more to say on these issues but perhaps that's enough (everyone else: no, TOO much!) for now. I hope I haven't made the situation worse by any bone-headed blunders or ignorant statements.

I suppose that in a way, I'm asking Sandya and other PoCs here (or is it PsoC?) to have some patience with the rest of us, to grant us the benefit of the doubt, and to believe that, if we offend, it is inadvertantly and not with malice aforethought.

Sandya wrote: "I am leaving this group. It is not adding anything of any value to my life. I don't read fiction and most people here read nothing but. As one of the very few (2 at last count and the other is appa..."
Sorry to read this Sandya. I may not always agree with you but you will be missed.
You are right about the non fiction books except ones about wars. My non fiction posts always sink without trace. I might try a special topic but have my doubts as to any response. Where is Magrat and her cookery and costume?
I, too, seem to have little in common with the authors mentioned as I do not seem to read the same sort of books and prefer to stay withthe Poems and Photos.

It would have been interesting to learn more about flying, who are your heroes.
As one London born to another I wish you well.

Sandya wrote: "I am leaving this group. It is not adding anything of any value to my life. I don't read fiction and most people here read nothing but. As one of the very few (2 at last count and the other is appa..."

sad to hear this Sandya, i read as much non-fiction as fiction so am interested in both sides and always been interested in your posts
i hope you reconsider.....

As Mentioned above I have started a Special Archaeology topic for anyone interested.

Sandya – I very much agree with all the others wishing you wouldn’t leave. I just want to add that, personally, I feel I need you to stay, because only you challenge some of my more comfortable assumptions. I welcome your acerbity and your rubbishing of regular opinions, and the biography and the flying.

MK wrote: “Also, once Trump made up his mind - that was it. He could not be dissuaded. A huge eye-roll when he wanted to stop vote counts while he was still ahead.”

A knowledgeable commentator on the radio this week gave a scenario I had not heard before. The crisis year is 2022, not 2024. The Democrats hold the House by only 8 seats, with 3 vacancies. The GOP has a decent hope of regaining control, with the usual mid-term swing against the sitting President. The Republicans will then elect Trump as Speaker. There is nothing in Article 1, Section 2 that requires the House to elect the Speaker from among its own members. From this point on, said the commentator, it’s the end of everything. No election of a Democrat will be certified while allegations of election fraud are examined. There will be nothing but investigations, and investigations into investigations.