Ersatz TLS discussion

Welcome to the new thread. With the clocks going back in the UK, and now in the US, it will be getting dark in the late afternoon, my favorite time for wintery reads in front of a fire, so a good moment to mark the change.

The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women’s Movement by Susannah Gibson - I thought I’d look through the first two short chapters to see what it was like, but it was so interesting and so well written I have just kept going, a history as you would expect of intellectual English women in the mid-to-late 18th century, and the obstacles they faced, shunned by conventional men who thought them self-evidently impossible as potential wives, and envied by other women who felt threatened. The present subject, though the lives are all woven together, is Elisabeth Montagu, who began the very first salon at her house in newly-developed Hill Street, Mayfair, in 1756, the only place in London where there was no gambling or drinking, just intelligent and witty conversation in mixed company. This at a time when perhaps 20,000 men were at their clubs each night.

The Land of the Firebird by Suzanne Massie– I’ve been reading this at bedtime for months and am still only just half way through. She is always enthusiastic. Everything is beautiful, tremendous, wonderful. The chapter on life at the court of Czarina Elizabeth is especially gushing. It makes you appreciate the proper asperity of Figes’ more critical cultural survey, which shows the dark underside as well as the colourful surface. Still, she tells the great stories well. The two chapters on Pushkin, his circle and his lamentable death, which I have just finished, are just what you want, an excellent short account that sends you back to the books and poems.

Thanks for the new thread. It's been years since I looked at St. Petersburg: A Cultural Historian by Russian historian and emigre Solomon Volkov. I may take another look at it.

Been absent all weekend, due to neices and nephew, family weekend, in very mild but pleasent breezy weather.I feel rather tired but enjoyed it all

No reading done for 3 days!

I've been reading about Theodore Roosevelt. Dan Abrams and David Fisher's Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense is the story of a bitter 1915 libel trial. Roosevelt had published an article attacking an upstate Republican political figure, William Barnes, as a political boss.
Barnes never appeared on a ballot; he was the man who raised the money, who picked political candidates and who expected to dictate party policy. His Democratic counterparty, New York City's Tammany chief, Charlie Murphy, operated in the same way, Roosevelt charged, and the two men colluded when their contributors' interests coincided. The book concentrates on the trial, which went on for a month, and on Roosevelt's eight days on the stand. Barnes' attorney, Ivins, and Roosevelt's attorney, Bowers, were top New York trial lawyers of the day, and went at the case hammer and tongs. The First World War was going on at the time and shared the front pages of New York papers with the story of the trial.

A good deal of interesting trial drama. Roosevelt struggled to explain why he'd written the article, over attorney Ivins' endless objections and Latin tags, as he spent eight days on the stand. When not on the stand, Roosevelt sat at his counsels' table, whispering, noting, reading. One Friday, Ivins approached Roosevelt with a book. Ivins, a classics scholar, had a translation of Aristophanes in hand. "Colonel, I assure you it's a first-rate translation," and asked if Roosevelt wanted to look at it." There would be no testimony that afternoon, only argument between the attorneys. "Dee-lighted, Mr. Ivins." So as the attorneys argued about the evidence Roosevelt could introduce in his defense, the defendant read the work of a Greek poet. Then rumors spread; the British ocean liner Lusitania had been torpedoed by the Germans, and the fate of her passengers was unknown. Roosevelt knew passengers on the ship. As he left the court that evening, the story of the trial had been pushed to the left side of the local paper's front page; the Lusitania story filled the right side...

I've shunted back and forth between the trial story and Edmund Morris' Theodore Rex, which follows Roosevelt during his years of power as President, 1901-1909. When Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a savage attack on Chicago's meat-packing district, Roosevelt read the book, considered it, and sent for Sinclair. Sinclair agreed to reveal his informants to Roosevelt's investigators, and guided them in Chicago. When his investigators returned with their report, Teddy asked them whether things were as bad as Sinclair claimed. "In some places they were worse."

Roosevelt leaked portions of the report to friendly journalists, who published them as scoops. This whetted public interest in meat-packing's unsanitary conditions, and put pressure on Congress to give Roosevelt his goal, a Pure Food and Drug Act.

I passed from that to Roosevelt's secret diplomacy, which brought warring Russia and Japan together for peace talks. Roosevelt acted as host and mediator for the talks, which were held at the US Navy base at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Roosevelt tried to tamp down Japan's demands for territory and cash indemnity, while sending a private message to the Czar, urging him to give the Russian representative, Witte, authority to make an offer.

One other incident strikes me. The scene is the US House of Representatives, late on a long hot night. Though the time for Congress to sit had come to an end, Roosevelt had extended the session. Legislation that the President wanted had passed the House but was trapped in a Senate filibuster. Joseph Cannon, a veteran House member, rose.

"I am in earnest, with a message to the House touching this bill... We have rules, sometimes invoked by our Democratic friends and sometimes by ourselves-- each responsible to the people after all's said and done-- by which a majority, right or wrong, mistaken or otherwise, can legislate...

In another body, there are no rules... in the expiring hours of the session we are helpless... Help me, Cassius, or I sink!"

Somehow, this reading is soothing syrup.

Charlie Murphy was a counterpart, of course. Ah, for greater power to correct...

Robert wrote: "I've been reading about Theodore Roosevelt. Dan Abrams and David Fisher's Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense is the story of a bitter 1915 libel trial. Roosevelt had published an article attacking ..."

Interesting, Robert. I know too little about this Roosevelt. He doesn’t strike one as a President who would agree to read Aristophanes. Nor in today’s style of litigation can one imagine handing the opposition mid-trial a book to read for pleasure. An advocate is more likely to be reprimanded for talking to a witness!

When was the last time anyone quoted Shakespeare in the House? Two or three decades, I should think. They’d be too concerned about appearing to show off, or being endlessly ridiculed on line. But a century ago it was powerful and apposite.

RussellinVT wrote: "Robert wrote: "I've been reading about Theodore Roosevelt. Dan Abrams and David Fisher's Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense is the story of a bitter 1915 libel trial. Roosevelt had published an art..."

it does make me wonder if either the reps or senate have any true thinkers left, one legacy on both sides of the pond, since the early 1980s Thatcher-Reagen turn, is the loss of literate thinkers and the rise of chancers and businessman politicians

Siblings by Brigitte Reimann, could be the best novel of 2025 that i have read so far.

Over 99 pages, barely a paragraph has failed to register and make a point, it is now rivalling Anselme's On Leave as my best read of the year

Its gained no traction on the G, as it is neither woke,a book club listing or modern but i will miss this when i finish it

The plot covers a young east german woman, who fears her middle brother may join her eldest brother in defecting to the west, or more accurately just leaving to live a life beyond the wall.

Using flashback and focused intense conversations its brilliantly composed and very East German, this is a novel which in some ways will baffle, due the centre stage setting of mundane, menial factory work and its subjects. The whole tired, two faced communist model in that era made the boring factory and the tedious workplace an altar to the worker and Reimann is deeply focused on this BUT, she doesnt make as boring as many did in that era

If the Reimann book is a translation, I'd be interested to read it. I'll check the Auburn Library's website.

Teddy Roosevelt was an odd duck as President. As a child, he lived for a time in Germany. He went to a German school and developed a taste for German poetry. He would read the Nibelunglied, aloud to his children. He loved epic poems, whatever the source. Roosevelt wrote some 28 books, reflecting his variety of interests: a military history of the Naval War of 1812 between Britain and the US, the first of several books about hunting and wildlife, essays on current affairs, a biography of Cromwell-- which helped to pay his expenses for his unsuccessful run for mayor of New York-- biographies of prominent Americans, books about his travels, the story of his trip down a wild, uncharted Brazilian river with the charismatic Colonel Rondon, and a four-volume Winning of the West, which he regarded as the great national epic.

As he remarked on the stand, he was also a public official. His distant cousin Franklin was fascinated by this man, a generation older than he, and asked TR whether he should run for a safe Democratic seat in the New York Senate. Teddy urged him on-- he wanted upper-class Americans to try public service, and thought that it would give Franklin some valuable political experience. Franklin modelled his early political career on Teddy-- both men served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and both were placed on a Presidential ticket as candidates for Vice President when they were quite young.

When he was on the stand in the libel suit, Ivins asked Roosevelt how many words he'd written. "I don't know, but I've written 150,000 letters." (This proved to be an underestimate.)

The Teddy Bear was named after him... All of Teddy's children were expected to learn a foreign language. His son Ted Jr. followed his Francophile mother Edith, but the headstrong oldest daughter, Alice, picked German, the more difficult language, while his son Kermit was quite a linguist...

Enough Roosevelts for now.

Robert wrote: "If the Reimann book is a translation, I'd be interested to read it. I'll check the Auburn Library's website.

Teddy Roosevelt was an odd duck as President. As a child, he lived for a time in German..."

yes, its a translation, a short novel. its cast me back into the world of East German writing.I have read a lot about literature in the DDR and its direction steered by the communist party and its useful idiots. Reimanns diaries cover this too, with the constant bickering and infighting amongst the approved authors and their mentors/bullies

Reimann was an original voice and the novel is daring in places, within the context of the DDR. She sadly died young at only 39, her second volume of diaries is on my pile

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

good NYRB essay on criticism by Jed Perl....made me think and muse on things

great line:
“…..What holds readers isnt the critics description of the passing parade but the deep feelings that inform the description”

also two unusual words came up which i hadnt heard of before
autotelic- having an end and a purpose all to itself
obnubilation- mental cloudiness and torpidity

Great news from NYC too....

AB76 wrote: "Siblings by Brigitte Reimann, could be the best novel of 2025 that i have read so far...."

I'm not sure I've read a single East German novel. Maybe the Reimann is a good place to start. I've had a Christa Wolf on the shelf for years, The Quest for Christa T, but out of pure obnoubilancy have never picked it up.

We have a lot of family arriving this weekend but am still finding moments to enjoy The Bluestockings and Balthazar.

Robert wrote: "Teddy Roosevelt was an odd duck as President. As a child, he lived for a time in Germany..."

When you get to the end of the trial I'd be interested to know the verdict.

RussellinVT wrote: "... obnoubilancy..."

QED.

RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Siblings by Brigitte Reimann, could be the best novel of 2025 that i have read so far...."

I'm not sure I've read a single East German novel. Maybe the Reimann is a good place to star..."

There is a good amount of DDR-lit in translation but a lot can only be picked up secondhand. Christa Wolf has done some fine novels and is worth reading, Stefan Heym is another The Architects is a superb novel, maybe the best East German one

The fact these writers were all deeply ensconced in the bizarre experiment of socialist suicide means they do sometimes feel very odd to read, in a good way.The whole focus of the "worker hero" and the endless guidance from the state are themes but were unavoidable if you wanted to be published.

I read a very good, long detailed uni press study of DDR Lit and the processes from 1949 to 1989 and it was fascinating but also made me think, how did this nonsense last so long?

Studying the eastern bloc is so rewarding for me as an adult, thematic or chronological studies always draw me in, i have just started a Cambridge Uni Press book on Hungary Before the Uprising, which looks at the 1949-56 period, including the vicious terror years as loyal comrades were show trialed to their quick deaths and then the collapse of the state into revolution and then soviet crackdown.

After a lengthy deliberation, the jury unanimously acquitted Theodore Roosevelt of libel. The one odd vote was a man who wanted an addition to the verdict form providing that the parties equally share costs. (He was a Democrat.) Judge Andrews told the jury that he could not accept a verdict in that form. Roosevelt's counsel was ready to stipulate to the sharing of costs; Barnes' counsel was sternly opposed. Eventually, the one holdout agreed to a "not guilty" verdict. After the verdict came in, Roosevelt shook hands with every juror, and promised to live up to their faith in him.
Then Teddy went on a Latin American speaking tour, and listened to Colonel Rondon's plea to go down river to the Amazon on the uncharted River of Doubt...

The TLS letters page has led me to a book i had never heard of about 1930s Austria and the rise of the Nazis

Last year i read a selection of Musil's writings on the 1930s in Austria that highlighted the tense game being played between the underground emerging Austrian Nazi movement and the conservative catholic right wing government, who eventually lost the battle with the anschluss in 1938.

In the TLS letters page, reference was made to a journalist whose name escapes me and his writing about 1930s Germany.Also mentioned was Telegraph correspondent George Gedye, who wrote about 1930 Austria. I have ordered his book about his time in Austria called Fallen Bastions, written in 1939. He was recalled from Vienna and lost his job due to the appeasement era reluctance of the british press to offend Herr Hitler. THis also happened to the other journalist, writing for the Times, if i remember right

Xmas period or lead up can be tricky to plan reading for, as time with family is not usually spent reading, so the next 5-6 weeks is my last real reading window of 2025, before fitting things in around the 15th to 31st Dec

Looking for short-ish novels, i have found The Girl on the Via Flamini by ALfred Hayes, Rome has been a theme of 2025 for me and i have read a few novels set there, so this should be interesting, especially winter in Rome

The other classic novels lined up after the STuart novel i have started are: Golding (Pincher Martin), Giono (A King Alone) and a collection of stories by Jean Rhys, if the going is good, i may add another novel before NYE

Robert wrote: "After a lengthy deliberation, the jury unanimously acquitted Theodore Roosevelt of libel...."

Interesting, thanks. I wonder if Barnes' counsel thought the fees of Roosevelt's counsel would be far higher than his own (assuming "costs" includes attorneys' fees). Otherwise it's hard to see why he would be so opposed. Not much at stake, now that he had lost.

AB76 wrote: "There is a good amount of DDR-lit in translation ..."

Thanks, AB. I've made a note of the various names. Not sure when I'll get to it.
...

I never have much of a reading plan. I have things I'm intending to read but then something enticing comes along and I immediately abandon whatever vestigial plan I had. I do actually think there is value in reading a book when you are ripe for it.

RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "There is a good amount of DDR-lit in translation ..."

Thanks, AB. I've made a note of the various names. Not sure when I'll get to it.
...

I never have much of a reading plan. I have..."

i think i started planning about 5 yrs ago, when i realised the choices would be too vast when i finished a book. The plans are loose and i would say less than 50% adhered to but it kind of gives each year a structure when you find themes and seasons with books listed as possibles

i've been flicking through the Gedye book(see post from today) and it looks superb, i'm sure you and Robert will enjoy it too but i wont be reading it until next year

RussellinVT Robert wrote: "After a lengthy: No, attorneys' fees aren't considered as part of costs in US courts, absent a prior agreement of the parties or a statute. And, oh, I errored: Roosevelt went on his river expedition the year before the trial.

I've said before that Curzio Malaparte, Francis Stuart and Paul Bowles are three novelists, rough contemporaries, who deal in cold hard fiction but all in their own ways. The usual complexities of morals and ethics are left out of the prose, bad things happen and they happen because they happen, which can shock and unsettle but also intrigue

Stuart, australian born, of Irish parentage, was a writer, poet and character of the Irish 20th century. At 17, he eloped with Isuelt Gonne, a disastrous marriage followed. He fought in the Irish Civil War and lived in Germany during WW2, managing to quite happily exist in the Nazi sphere.

In Black List, Section H(1971) his last major novel, he tells the story of his life from youth to end of WW2, vaguely disguised as a novel. I'm only 65 pages in and its an unusual but rewarding read, it is possibly the first novel i have read in decades where France plays almost no role. He travels to London, back to Dublin, to Germany, Austria and other european nations but France is not one of them. Francophilia is a common vice of the modern British writer and thinker but Stuart, so far, exhibits none of this and its refreshing to have a focus away from France

His two great novels were Redemption and The Pillar of Cloud both excellent. The former set in Ireland , the latter set in the French Zone of Germany after WW2 and dealing with the war and its fallout around the city of Freiburg.

AB76 wrote: "I've said before that Curzio Malaparte, Francis Stuart and Paul Bowles are three novelists, rough contemporaries, who deal in cold hard fiction but all in their own ways. The usual complexities of ..."

Thanks, AB. Marriage to Iseult Gonne must have been like opening a door to an entire historico-cultural universe. The Pillar of Cloud sounds particularly interesting. I'll ask the library to look for a copy (an example of me going off-plan to read whatever looks enticing).

RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I've said before that Curzio Malaparte, Francis Stuart and Paul Bowles are three novelists, rough contemporaries, who deal in cold hard fiction but all in their own ways. The usual com..."

i think you will like that novel Russ...i read it last year, the specific setting in the french occupied zone of Germany(roughly the SW of Germany) has not been written about much in novels and Stuart deals with the complexities of the post WW2 era

AB76 wrote: "I've said before that Curzio Malaparte, Francis Stuart and Paul Bowles are three novelists, rough contemporaries, who deal in cold hard fiction but all in their own ways. The usual complexities of ..."

I thought I would look in to Stuarts history a bit, and came across this by Colm Toibin in LRB, (4th Jan, 2001) which may be of interest. All I can say is that he seems to have deluded himself far more that he thought he had!.. and was determined somewhat on emotionally rewriting his own history. I did find myself wondering about the title of his book. The Pillar of Cloud, and did wonder if he was somehow allied himself with T E Lawrence's epic history? Though I do understand the 'The Pillar of Cloud' is a Biblical reference from the old Testament, and was a sign that God was looking out for his people, by showing them a sign that he was with them?... So his use of that metaphor was somewhat ironic, to me, in terms of Stewart's at least initial support for Hitler?...https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n...

Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I've said before that Curzio Malaparte, Francis Stuart and Paul Bowles are three novelists, rough contemporaries, who deal in cold hard fiction but all in their own ways. The usual com..."

the autobigraphical novel Black List, Section H is offering some semi-murky clarity on Stuart and his ideas, based around the Irish Civil War. (the sections on ww2 will hopefully do the same). It seems the young, gauche Stuart was pro-republican in the civil war, anti-free state. But his "narrator" states that neither Griffith or De Valera meant anything to him, he was more interested in the chaos and division that war may sow among the collective Irish herd and how it may change Irish society. Its a kind of thinking i find deeply irresponsible and dangerous.

If i push this theory foward to WW2, maybe he felt the same with Hitler, his rebellious nature going against the anti-Hitler masses by 1939 and seeing Hitler as a catalyst for change.

He is a very odd and unlikeable man, his writing fascinates me, i found a short youtube clip of him and it was all being difficult and evasive and just made me think...what a ****

I started reading The Death at the Vineyard by Emylia Hall having enjoyed her previous books, the last one being the Rockpool Murders.

What a disappointment, 150 pages in I gave up. Longwinded and getting nowhere slowly.

RussellinVT a warning if you were thinking of trying it.

giveusaclue wrote: "I started reading The Death at the Vineyard by Emylia Hall having enjoyed her previous books, the last one being the Rockpool Murders.

What a disappointment, 150 pages in I gave up. Longwinded and..."

Thanks for the warning, giveus. Pity she couldn't maintain her standard.

Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile has been a superb find for me.

I havent quite liked much of the Dorfman non-fiction i have read till now and didnt like his plays. But this is superbly written, in english, i'm enjoying every page as he honestly and directly explores the nature of his enforced exile from Chile in 1973, after Allende was deposed. He also mixes in diaries from his return to Chile and flashbacks of life in exile and much more recent events, when he was the subject of a film about his return.

He also mentions the writer Antonio Skarmeta and has led me to order his novel The Postman somehow i have studiously avoided this chilean novel as i felt it was not my cup of tea but i had not realised the novel is set in Chile and involves Pablo Neruda, hence i will be reading it in next 12 months (early in my discovery of great latin american lit, aged 30 or so,. i was dismayed to find so much magic realism(which i loathe) or exile novels set in different nations. Thankfully as my reading widened, that problem can now be avoided

AB76 wrote: "... i was dismayed to find so much magic realism(which i loathe)..."

I'm with you there. Read one Rushdie and one Marquez and one Allende, and haven't been back to any of them, though many would call this ridiculously short-sighted.

The Global Refuge: Huguenots in the Age of Empire by Owen Stanwood has arrived form the library. Looking through, it seems like a good professional job (OUP, 2020), and not too long at 230 pages.. The author is a professor at Boston College and wrote it, after years of research, while at the Institute for Advanced Study on a year’s fellowship. Will start on it once I’ve completed one or two other books.

My eye was caught by the headline to a review in the FT of what looks like an interesting book due out from Yale in January – Ruthless: A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1600-1800 by Edmond Smith, a professor at Manchester. Couldn’t read the review itself as I don’t subscribe. The brief reviews available on line are all by other authors, no doubt friends of the author and probably appearing on the dust jacket, and therefore not to be trusted in the least. I’ll wait to see what the literary reviews say. It's not exactly a novel subject, but his angle might be new.

RussellinVT wrote: "The Global Refuge: Huguenots in the Age of Empire by Owen Stanwood has arrived form the library. Looking through, it seems like a good professional job (OUP, 2020), and not too long at 230 pages.. ..."

that sounds interesting, TLS gave the Smith book a good review if i remember right. I wish there wasnt a hardback market really as the reviews drop, i am interested but then its 18months until paperback and i can read them

Rushdie's Midnight's Children was a good satirical novel about post-independence India.

Many years ago, when I should have had my mind on other things, I began exploring the university library for writings by W. B. Yeats, especially his political writings. I was set onto this by a lamenting article by George Orwell, regarding the poet. Orwell liked poetry and admired Yeats, whom he thought the best living European poet. But Orwell found a sympathy for fascism in his 1930s writings, and these were lucid words, a very old man in control of his mind. One of the books I looked at was a pamphlet called "On the Boiler."

I'm looking at a copy of "On the Boiler" now, for the first time since then. The odd title came from a childhood experience. Yeats remembered a man who called himself "The Great McCoy." McCoy, a ship's carpenter deep in private scriptural studies. From time to time he emerged; McCoy advertised that he would appear atop a massive rusty boiler and give a speech. Yeats wanted to go but was discouraged by his family. "Then I saw him at a Rosses Point regatta alone in a boat; sculling it in whenever he saw a crowd, then, bow to seaward, denouncing the general wickedness, then sculling it out amid a shower of stones."

As an old man, Yeats was in a similar mood himself, marking it with a poem: "Why should not old men be mad?/ Some have known a likely lad/ That had a sound fly fisher's wrist/ Turn to a drunken journalist... A Helen of social welfare dream/ Climb on a wagonette to scream." He had watched southern Ireland change from a Post Office rebellion to a Free State; he had served in the Irish Senate; he had seen generations under a Republic. Yeats was not pleased with the play of human nature, in Ireland and elsewhere, and was ready to scream himself.

"Some think it a matter of course that chance/ Should starve good men and bad advance,/ That if their neighbors figured plain,/ As though upon a lighted screen/ No single story would they find/ Of an unbroken happy mind/ A finish worthy of the start."

There is serious talk of the general course of European civilization; he weighs the Irish government as it was when he served in its Senate. "The ministers had not been elected. They had destroyed a system of election and established another, made terrible decisions, the ablest had signed the death warrant of his dearest friend. They seemed men of skill and mother-wit, men who had survived hatred." But another generation had grown up; revolutionary families had intermarried, and perhaps would trace their ancestry to the Dublin Post office as American families did to the Mayflower." Time and selection of mates were more valuable than doctrines.

It's a short pamphlet, and my memory have erred, expecting other late poems and plays; all for now.

Robert wrote: "Rushdie's Midnight's Children was a good satirical novel about post-independence India.

Many years ago, when I should have had my mind on other things, I began exploring the university library fo..."

Is that the origin of the phrase "the real McCoy"?

Robert wrote: "Rushdie's Midnight's Children was a good satirical novel about post-independence India.

Many years ago, when I should have had my mind on other things, I began exploring the university library fo..."

Interesting, Robert. I didn't know about that late essay of Yeats. From the late poems - at least the ones we read in school - you would think that Yeats the distinguished public man was benignly tolerant of others, but perhaps not.

Finished the last ten months of Jünger’s Journal, July 1944 to April 1945. Now back in Kirchhorst and discharged, he is freer to contemplate nature and language and literature, but he remains an appalled observer of events, and of the mighty bombing raids that pulverize the nearby towns night and day and shake his house to the foundations. He stays in touch with his circle in the military, many of whom are being rounded up and executed. The tone becomes subdued and to a degree withdrawn after news arrives of the death of his son in Italy. He completes a second close reading of the Bible, on which he draws constantly. He reads obsessively of shipwrecks and of the extremities the survivors take to stay alive. Even as thoughts of destruction fill his mind he still has the capacity to reflect on Huysmans and Kipling and the meaning of the judgment of Paris, and much else besides. In the event it all concludes with the arrival of American tanks in his village street. As a record of the experience of one civilized German in “this world of butchery” it is surely unsurpassed.

I liked the description of how he, being woken from deep sleep during one raid, becomes aware that that there are unknown regions of dreams, just as there are depths of ocean to which no ray of light penetrates. Also, his comparison of old Hindenburg to the German governor in The Devils, Lembke, who is not up to the task of dealing with the chaos unfolding around him. Striking thoughts such as these occur throughout. My only sadness is that, even with the aid of an index, it will be impossible to find my way back to many of them. I do not care to deface a fine book by highlighting passages.

I think I have figured out who “the president” is. He is clearly a person in the military hierarchy in Paris and somewhat senior in rank. There is no explanation in the otherwise very helpful Introduction, nor in the general Index. But in the Glossary of Proper Names there is an entry for Walter Bargatzky (1910-1998), who is described as “president of the German Red Cross, on the General Staff in Paris in World War II.” He appears once in the text under his own name, discussing with Jünger the possible clandestine publication of the Appeal. After the war he published a memoir of his time in Paris.

Junger's Journal was well worth reading; I suppose that the Junger who appears there, a man of independent mind, has sent me back to Yeats, another independent fellow.

Robert wrote: "Junger's Journal was well worth reading; I suppose that the Junger who appears there, a man of independent mind, has sent me back to Yeats, another independent fellow."

Yeats is a presence in my Stuart novel, as he was in real life, when he was a big fan of Stuarts poetry in the early 1920s. I love Yeats too

RussellinVT wrote: "Finished the last ten months of Jünger’s Journal, July 1944 to April 1945. Now back in Kirchhorst and discharged, he is freer to contemplate nature and language and literature, but he remains an ap..."

thanks for that about "the president", one real omission from the excellent edition we both read, is a clear reference to who he was but i must have missed the name of Bargatsky. AN entry from german wikipedia and it looks like you have solved it:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_...

Tam wrote: "Is that the origin of the phrase "the real McCoy"?"

My copy of Webster's Dictionary suggests, if anything, a Scottish origin:

"McCoy [alter. of Mackay (in the phrase the real Mackay the true chief of the Mackay clan, a position often disputed)]: something that is neither imitation nor substitute - often used in the phrase the real McCoy"

It dates this usage to 1883.

AB76 wrote: "AN entry from german wikipedia and it looks like you have solved it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_..."

Seems so. Interesting test of my schoolboy German.

RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "AN entry from german wikipedia and it looks like you have solved it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_..."

Seems so. Interesting test of my schoolboy German."

you can google translate it, just right click and then select "translate to english"

Its great to see the Junger diaries being a fixture on here for most of 2025, i just wish more of his diaries were available in well curated translations.

The Francis Stuart novel is poised in the doldrums between the highs of the Irish Civil War, Yeats and the coming descent into identifying with Nazi Germany

Its a novel where one finds a weak, cowardly figure, behaving in a weak and cowardly way and being quite oblivious to it. I wonder if Stuart was on the spectrum. He is married with 2 kids but wants to have constant affairs and escape the domestic life, like most irresponsible selfish men, he seems to accept no agency in that domestic life, as if he was forced into it and had no choice. I loathe constant adultery and affairs, so the middle section has had a lot of irritating sections and then it sparks into life again.

Stuart in the novel is the character called "H"

The Bluestockings by Susannah Gibson (2024) proved to be an interesting and valuable read, a group portrait of female literary life and the salons of late 18th century London. The author does a service in bringing to the foreground this circle of talented, witty and sociable ladies, who were well known in society and to each other. The standard histories either fail to mention them entirely or concentrate on Fanny Burney, with barely a nod to Elizabeth Montagu the eminent hostess and critic of Shakespeare, or Catharine Macaulay the republican-oriented historian of England (1603 to 1714), or Elizabeth Carter the deeply learned translator of Epictetus (the entire works). One is nonetheless struck by the fact that there are relatively few of them, the leaders numbering a dozen at most, and it is a pity that hardly any record survives to show us the scintillating conversation of these women. Their letters and journals have to stand proxy.

To tell the truth, the most astonishing part of the book is the 45-page section in the middle dealing with Hester Thrale (the intimate friend of Dr Johnson) and not her intellectual distinction so much as her motherhood – seventeen pregnancies in fifteen years. There were four miscarriages and one still birth. Of the twelve live births, eight ended in early death, and not one of the surviving children was the much desired son. You read the details with appalled fascination. The author makes the point that every other bluestocking lady quietly disregarded the convention for large families and had no more than one or two children or, more often, none at all. It is unsurprising that women would, if they could, avoid the serious dangers of childbirth, both for the mother and for the child. This was a world in which a pregnancy could lead to a lifetime of ill health, and a child could be carried off in a day or two by a fever or whooping cough or measles or – the leading cause of infant mortality – teething.

As this passage on motherhood indicates, the book is a readable account of their lives – and the almost insurmountable social, educational, and financial difficulties faced in that age by any woman seeking independence - rather than a close study of their works.

Following on from The Bluestockings I have been engrossed in a delightful slim volume edited by Richard Ingrams entitled Dr Johnson by Mrs Thrale (1984), this book being the first time the Johnsonian observations and anecdotes recorded in her journal Thraliana appeared in their original form, one pungent story after another. The selection she published shortly after his death (vastly popular – the first run sold out in a day) was heavily amended, and the complete OUP edition of her journal brought out in 1942 buries this material in two thick volumes.

It seems that Boswell was jealous of her success. In writing his own later biography he went out of his way to abuse her work as inaccurate and fanciful, in which he has been followed by later historians. But these episodes, written down as they were the same day or the day after, while Johnson was staying in her house, have all the air of truth. They certainly give a rounded view of Johnson’s genius, and no wonder his contemporaries regarded him as a colossus of intelligence and wit. In presenting his day-to-day conversation they do put less emphasis on the one great feature that I carried away from Boswell (of which I read about half many years ago), that is, Johnson’s profound Christian piety. I will also say that Mrs Thrale’s first-person record gives a better idea of her own liveliness and gaiety and unaffected learning, all of which Susannah Gibson’s book somehow fails to convey to the same degree. SG leans more to Hester Thrale’s difficulties in life, and the oppression of females generally, instead of what it was that made accomplished men and women actively seek her company.

I thought I knew all the barbed remarks Johnson threw at the Scots but I came across one more that made me laugh:

“To one of them who commended the Town of Glasgow he replied – Sir I presume you have never yet seen Brentford.”

AB76 wrote: "you can google translate it, just right click and then select "translate to english"

Useful to know, tks. Since Bargatzky didn’t become president of the German Red Cross until 1967 it is still a puzzle why Jünger should call him that – supposing it is indeed he who is referred to.

RussellinVT wrote: "AB76 wrote: "you can google translate it, just right click and then select "translate to english"

Useful to know, tks. Since Bargatzky didn’t become president of the German Red Cross until 1967 it..."

its strange the otherwise excellent edition of the diaries we both read has failed to identify him really, if its not Bargatsky,its not like he is mentioned once and then never again.

i initially wondered if it was Petain but then he was holed up down in Vichy and i doubt the taciturn, dour Northern frenchman like Petain would be much use in cultural conversations!

Has scarlet stopped commenting on here? seems last message was April?

its a shame, as i can see a comment on the G today