What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

[Spotted Horses]

The Fraud, the latest by Zadie Smith



I'm a big fan of Zadie Smith, but this is a big change in style, from contemporary subjects to historical fiction.

The focus of the book is the Tichborne affair. Roger Tichborne was lost at sea in a shipwreck in South America in the early 19th century. Many years later a rumor reached Ticborne's mother that a ship bound for Australia picked up some survivors from the shipwreck and transported them to Australia. Tichborne's mother advertised widely in Australia and a man claimed to be Roger Tichborne. The claimant appeared to be a bankrupt butcher from Wagga Wagga who had fled to Australia and changed his name to avoid his debts, but Roger's mother and a few other individuals, including a Bogel, a former slave and later paid servant of Roger Tichborne, supported his claim. The other focus of the book is William Ainsworth, an author who was very popular at the tie but whose fame died with him. The book is narrated by Ainsworth's cousin, and describes her reaction to the trials, to the intriguing character of Bogle, and the London social scene she has access to through her connection with Ainsworth. At first the focus of the book seemed scattered to me, but ultimately it came to a satisfying conclusion.

[vers la flamme]

The Fraud, the latest by Zadie Smith



I'm a big fan of Zadie Smith, but this is a big change in style, from contemporary subjects to historical fiction.

The focus of the book is the Tichborne affair. Roger Tichborne was lost at sea in a shipwreck in South America in the early 19th century. Many years later a rumor reached Ticborne's mother that a ship bound for Australia picked up some survivors from the shipwreck and transported them to Australia. Tichborne's mother advertised widely in Australia and a man claimed to be Roger Tichborne. The claimant appeared to be a bankrupt butcher from Wagga Wagga who had fled to Australia and changed his name to avoid his debts, but Roger's mother and a few other individuals, including a Bogel, a former slave and later paid servant of Roger Tichborne, supported his claim. The other focus of the book is William Ainsworth, an author who was very popular at the tie but whose fame died with him. The book is narrated by Ainsworth's cousin, and describes her reaction to the trials, to the intriguing character of Bogle, and the London social scene she has access to through her connection with Ainsworth. At first the focus of the book seemed scattered to me, but ultimately it came to a satisfying conclusion.

Wow, interesting timing. Right before I clicked on this thread I finished reading Jorge Luis Borges' The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro, which is also about the Tichborne affair.

[steve ridgway]

Andre Norton: The Time Traders (in a Kindle anthology).

[Daverz]

Andre Norton: The Time Traders (in a Kindle anthology).

Wow, that brings back memories of my childhood.



There was also this one:

[steve ridgway]

Wow, that brings back memories of my childhood.

That's what I'm hoping to do; I used to read loads of such stuff back in the 1970s.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Boy, I haven't read any books by her in ages!  I suspect that I mostly read the anthologies.

I did just see one image which caught my eye and I'll have to check out:  Catfantastic (looks like she and others wrote and compiled a series of these books).

PD

[ritter]

Reading Emilio Carrere's Ruta emocional de Madrid ("Emotional Itinerary through Madrid"), a book originally published in 1935 and that was released again last year.



Carrere (1881 - 1947) was one of the leading figures of bohemian Madrid in the the years from the beginning of the 20th century to the outbreak of the civil war in 1936. His book is a collection of short poems dealing with streets and everyday scenes of old Madrid, a city that was changing quickly (some would say, disappearing) when the book was written. Yet, much of what is described can still be perceived today... . The focus is on popular neighbourhoods and lower-class characters...

Not great poetry IMO, but a very enjoyable book for anyone who loves this city...

Some nice prints by Fernando Marco, reproduced from the original 1935 release, are included in this carefully prepared and annotated edition.

[Mandryka]

Time to tackle a biggie.

Astonishing prose - Shakespearean - like « Out, out brief candle. » or « What a piece of work is man. »  Faulkner could turn a good phrase.

At first I thought - this is too gothic for me. But I'm completely seduced. I'm up to Chapter Five - Rosa talking to Quentin. Just amazing prose! Who cares whether it makes sense?  Not me! I really don't want to spoil the experience with close reading or philosophical analysis, I just want to enjoy the music of it, the poetry of it.

I kind of wish I knew a bit more about the context - American history and culture. Is there a sort of « American Studies for dummies » book?  Something important  obviously happened in 1865 . . .

A month after reading Absalom   I've discovered this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(miniseries)

Maybe you guys all know about this stuff, but for me, it is completely new.  I'm really surprised there's so much photographic material -- imagine if the camera had been invented in  1848!  There's even TV material of the veterans.

[JBS]

A month after reading Absalom   I've discovered this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(miniseries)

Maybe you guys all know about this stuff, but for me, it is completely new.  I'm really surprised there's so much photographic material -- imagine if the camera had been invented in  1848!  There's even TV material of the veterans.

This may interest you.
https://www.nps.gov/gett/learn/photosmultimedia/devil-s-den-then-and-now.htm

The seventh photo is one of the most famous pictures of the Civil War.

[Mandryka]

No voice in the North in favour of allowing cessation? No white voice in the South against slavery and for remaining in The Union?  That's the impression I'm getting from the first video.

Mary Chestnut is interesting vis-a-vis Absalom. She talks about silence of the blacks. (Faulkner (in the voice of Sutpen)  talks about the laughter of the blacks making them inscrutable almost, threatening. )

Also interesting to learn how politically ruthless Lincoln was.  I may have to find a biography if him,.

[Brian]

No voice in the North in favour of allowing cessation? No white voice in the South against slavery and for remaining in The Union?  That's the impression I'm getting from the first video.

I'm not sure about the first question. There were certainly voices in the North that did not much care about slavery and did not much like Lincoln, but more or less everyone believed that the Union was inviolable and that nobody should be allowed to leave. This is why during the first two or so years of the war, more or less all the Union propaganda points were about restoring the nation and bringing rebels back into the fold.

As for Southern voices against slavery and for union, they did exist but were quickly suppressed or chose to stay in the north. I can think of two examples. Sam Houston, the Texas independence hero, for whom the city of Houston is named, was anti-slavery and pro-union and quickly hounded out of leadership. And the southern army general George H. Thomas quickly decided that his conscience required he stay loyal to the federal government, so he joined the Union army against the forces of his home state.

[Mandryka]

Just one passing comment gave me pause for thought in the documentary -- that the confederate states were legally entitled to leave the union, and would never have joined the union if they thought they wouldn't be allowed to leave.

I was really surprised to learn that Lincoln's focus was preserving the union, and not at all on abolishing slavery.

I've just discovered another real interesting sounding character who I'd like to investigate more -- I'm sure he's well known to Americans but I never heard him mentioned in my education -- George McClellan.

Just a random thought about the Faulkner


In Absalom, Thomas Sutpen (who's an important character) is from West Virginia, which I think was a Confederate state. Yet (importantly in the novel) he did not have any awareness of  slavery and its associated racist/exploitative/apartheid values when he was a child, so if that's right the South was not homogenous politically at all. And another main character, Shreve McCannon, is from Canada -- I'm not at all clear what that implies about him politically (I think Canada was British, I don't know what the British involvement in this war amounted to.)

Americans == do southerners still feel they suffered defeat?

[Brian]

Americans == do southerners still feel they suffered defeat?

Absolutely yes and it still affects our politics in many ways. You can see this in a state like Mississippi where the political divide today is basically along racial lines, and (for example) the white/Republican state government tries to sabotage the black/Democratic government in the city of Jackson. A very entertaining but rather chilling read on your question is Tony Horwitz' book Confederates in the Attic, written in the 1990s about people who still venerate the "Lost Cause." Horwitz found that many people and places today venerate the South even though their ancestors were on the northern side. There are parts of Kentucky, for example, that were Unionist and now like to paint themselves as southerners because of their current political views.

McClellan is a very interesting figure in American history and remains fairly little known here except among history students, Civil War buffs, etc. Partly because his views as a politician were overshadowed by his incompetence as a general.

[Florestan]

a state like Mississippi where the political divide today is basically along racial lines, and (for example) the white/Republican state government tries to sabotage the black/Democratic government in the city of Jackson.

This is quite a reversal, because AFAIK the Republican Party, ie Lincoln's party, was positively hated by the whites in the South for decades after the Civil War and it was the Democratic Party that ruled unchallenged during all that period.

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

[Brian]

This is quite a reversal, because AFAIK the Republican Party, ie Lincoln's party, was positively hated by the whites in the South for decades after the Civil War and it was the Democratic Party that ruled unchallenged during all that period.

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

Yes, the reversal happened in the mid-1960s when Southern Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. After that, Republicans (including Nixon) pursued a "Southern Strategy" of appealing to white people who did not like those civil rights moves. The parties completely reversed their positions; black people remain to this day almost too loyal to the Democrats regardless of Democratic positions, while Republican leaders remain too reliant on uneducated white voters.

[SimonNZ]

No voice in the North in favour of allowing cessation? No white voice in the South against slavery and for remaining in The Union?  That's the impression I'm getting from the first video.

Mary Chestnut is interesting vis-a-vis Absalom. She talks about silence of the blacks. (Faulkner (in the voice of Sutpen)  talks about the laughter of the blacks making them inscrutable almost, threatening. )

Also interesting to learn how politically ruthless Lincoln was.  I may have to find a biography if him,.

Oh, I think everyone was for cessation. (sorry, couldn't resist, I know you meant secession)

Thanks for reminding me that I've got Mary Chesnut's Diary, but have gone and buried it:

I wont be reading it immediately, but at a secocondhand bookshop today I picked up a copy of Mary Chestnut's Diary, and in the store opened it to this entry:

"The Yankees, since the war has begun, have discovered it is to free slaves that they are fighting. So their case is noble.  They also expect to make the war pay. They think we belong to them. We have been good milk cows - milked by the tariff, or skimmed,. We let them have all all of our hard earnings. We bear the ban of slavery; they get the money. Cotton pays everybody who handles it, sells it, manufactures it, but rarely pays the man who grows it. Second hand the Yankees recieve the wages of slavery. They grew rich. We grew poor. The reciever is as bad as the thief. "

(entry for July 8th, 1862 - page 175)



Ken Burns quoted her extensively in his Civil War series, but I don't remember hearing that one

[JBS]

Just one passing comment gave me pause for thought in the documentary -- that the confederate states were legally entitled to leave the union, and would never have joined the union if they thought they wouldn't be allowed to leave.

I was really surprised to learn that Lincoln's focus was preserving the union, and not at all on abolishing slavery.

I've just discovered another real interesting sounding character who I'd like to investigate more -- I'm sure he's well known to Americans but I never heard him mentioned in my education -- George McClellan.

Just a random thought about the Faulkner


In Absalom, Thomas Sutpen (who's an important character) is from West Virginia, which I think was a Confederate state. Yet (importantly in the novel) he did not have any awareness of  slavery and its associated racist/exploitative/apartheid values when he was a child, so if that's right the South was not homogenous politically at all. And another main character, Shreve McCannon, is from Canada -- I'm not at all clear what that implies about him politically (I think Canada was British, I don't know what the British involvement in this war amounted to.)

Americans == do southerners still feel they suffered defeat?

Re: West Virginia
Prior to 1860, it was simply the westernmost part of Virginia, but heavily dominated by Unionists. When Virginia seceded, this group of counties objected, and with help from the Federals organized their own state and remained in the Union. IOW they seceded from Virginia with support from the anti-secessionists.  For further details, best look on the Internet. Nowadays, WVa is the Trumpiest of Trump states.

But there would have been some slaves there. I'd ascribe Sutpen's naivete to authorial design.


Re: McClellan
He was excellent at organization and logistics, but highly risk averse. So he got the Army of the Potomac into great shape to fight battles, but was so scared of losing battles he never wanted to fight them.

Re: Canada
As British territory it was neutral, and the Confederacy liked to base spies there. At least once Confederates used it as a base to stage a major raid on St Alban's, Vermont.

[SimonNZ]

I've just discovered another real interesting sounding character who I'd like to investigate more -- I'm sure he's well known to Americans but I never heard him mentioned in my education -- George McClellan.

McClellan is who I think of whenever I hear someone talk of the modern Republican Party as "the party of Lincoln". Every single current person saying that would have been a staunch McClellan voter in 1864. Especially the current leader, who also likes to use that phrase.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Why we get sick, Randolph M. Nesse. The authors explain that we have some sickness because it enhances (or enhanced) human survival and reproduction.