What are you reading now?

[Mal]

Just trying (again) to get into How the French Think, by Sudhir Hazareesingh. I bought it when it first came out in paperback in 2016 and I'm getting to know the first chapter quite well

I borrowed that from the library and couldn't get into it. If you want a readable "trendy continental philosophy" book then try "Grand Hotel Abyss : the lives of the Frankfurt School" by Stuart Jeffries. Ardcarp note - there's a lot of "taking to the streets" talk in this book, as Marcuse is considered at length, and a lot of arguments from his chums against this, especially from the head honcho, Adorno. So "supine" British youngsters are actually in line with the most advanced thinking of the Frankfurt school, Marcuse & the French mob being the violent offshoot that was never going to work (as history proved... and goes on proving...) The French students are living within the capitalist system just as much as UK students, the matter of fees is really rather minor. The threat of a few students marching around the streets, and throwing a few bricks, is really no threat against a capitalist system armed with tanks, jets, and nuclear weapons.

[LMcD]

Currently reading 'Paris after the Liberation' by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper.

[Mal]

I recently read the excellent Dadland by Keggie Carew, whose father was known as the "Lawrence of Burma", after his successful guerrilla tactics against the Japanese; before that he was parachuted into France before D Day to help organise the resistance.

[Petrushka]

Currently reading 'Leningrad: Siege and Symphony' by Brian Moynahan. Combining my interest in the Second World War, Russian history and music this was always going to be my kind of book. The story of the 900 day siege and of pre-war Leningrad is one of unrelenting horror and misery and told here in unflinching detail. Woven into the story is that of Shostakovich and his 'Leningrad' Symphony with much interesting detail of musical life in the beleaguered city.

Strongly recommended!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Currently reading 'Leningrad: Siege and Symphony' by Brian Moynahan. Combining my interest in the Second World War, Russian history and music this was always going to be my kind of book. The story of the 900 day siege and of pre-war Leningrad is one of unrelenting horror and misery and told here in unflinching detail. Woven into the story is that of Shostakovich and his 'Leningrad' Symphony with much interesting detail of musical life in the beleaguered city.

Strongly recommended!

And apposite today - the anniversary of the end of the Siege in 1944.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Primo Levi's The Truce, which includes this account of the Red Army's liberation of Auschwitz, where he had been imprisoned during the last year of the War. (Apologies for the length of this quotation, I think the content requires no less, today of all days):

The first Russian troops came in view of the camp around midday on January 27th, 1945. Charles and I were first to catch sight of it: we were carrying to the common grave the body of Somogyi, the first of the men in our room to die. We overturned the stretcher onto the dirty snow, because the grave was by now full, and no other burial could be given. Charles took off his cap, to salute the living and the dead.

Four young soldiers on horseback, machine guns under their arms, proceeded warily along the road that followed the perimeter of the camp. When they reached the fences, they paused to look, and, with a brief, timid exchange of words, turned their gazes, shocked by a strange embarrassment, to the jumbled pile of corpses, to the ruined barracks, and to us few living beings.

...

They didn't greet us, they didn't smile; they appeared oppressed, not only by pity, but by a confused restraint, which sealed their mouths, and riveted their eyes to the mournful scene. It was a shame well-known to us; the shame that inundated us after the selections and every time we had to witness or submit to an outrage: the shame that the Germans didn't know, and which the just man feels before a sin committed by another. It troubles him that it exists, that it has been irrevocably introduced into the world of things that exist, and that his goodwill availed nothing, or little, and was powerless to defend against it.

So, for us even the hour of freedom struck solemn and oppressive, and filled our hearts with both joy and a painful sense of shame, because of which we would have liked to wash from our consciences and our memories the monstrosity that lay there; and with anguish , because we felt that this could not happen, that nothing could ever happen that was good and pure enough to wipe out our past, and that the marks of the offense would remain in us forever, and in the memories of those who were present, and in the places where it happened, and in the stories that would make of it. Since - and this is the tremendous privilege of our generation and of my people - no one could ever grasp better than us the incurable nature of the offense, which spreads like an infection. it is foolish to think that it can be abolished by human justice. It is an inexhaustible source of evil: it breaks the body and soul of those who are drowned, extinguishes them and makes them abject; rises again as infamy in the oppressors, is perpetuated as hatred in the survivors, and springs up in a thousand ways, against the very will of all, as a thirst for revenge, as moral breakdown, as negation, as weariness, as resignation.

These things, at the time not clearly discerned, and noted by the majority only as a sudden wave of mortal fatigue, accompanied the jpy of liberation, Therefore few among us ran to the saviours, few fell in prayer. Charles and I stood still near the ditch overflowing with livid limbs, while others knocked down the fence; then we returned with the stretcher, to bring the news to our companions.

[greenilex]

Too late for my great aunt and her family, Korngold’s in-laws.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Too late for my great aunt and her family, Korngold’s in-laws.

... indeed; and for millions of others. Unspeakable evil, that still must be spoken. Levi's passionate, detached, and perfectly-constructed prose I find miraculous.

[verismissimo]

Thanks, ferney, for your moving post from Levi.

[Pianoman]

And yet we still have this....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/one-in-20-britons-does-not-believe-holocaust-happened

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And yet we still have this....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...caust-happened

Staggering - and horrific.

[LMcD]

I don't know whether holocaust denial is a crime in the UK - if it isn't, it should be! Although clearly less horrific in terms of magnitude, the current story regarding Rachel Riley has come as something of a shock to me, providing as it does yet another example of how social media can be (ab)used to spread such hatred. I never even realized that RR is Jewish, and if I had realized it wouldn't have mattered, nor will it matter in future. But then, I once worked for 2 years with a lady called Sybil and - honestly - didn't 'twig'! You might call me naïve, but I prefer to think of myself as broad-minded.

[HighlandDougie]

With some sadness (as I didn't want it to end), "Killing Commendatore", by Haruki Murakami. Among many other virtues, surely the Charles Dickens de nos jours. Solti's "Rosenkavalier" a constant in this one (as opposed to Lazar Berman's "Années de Pélérinages" in the last - brilliant - one).

[Jonathan]

Currently reading Jasper Fforde's latest - Early Riser. Very clever and funny.

[french frank]

Goethe's Letters from Italy, transl. WH Auden and Elizabeth Mayer. For October 8 1786 he describes a visit to the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, specifically to look at Paolo Veronese's painting of Alexander and Hephaestus:



About this he wrote: 'The female members of the family of Darius are kneeling at the feet of Alexander and Hephaestus. The mother mistakes Hephaestus for the King, but he declines the honour and points to the right person. There is a legend connected with this picture according to which Veronese was for a long time an honoured guest in this palace and, to show his gratitude, painted it in secret, rolled it up and left it under his bed as a gift. It is certainly worthy of such an unusual history. His ability to create a harmony through a skilful distribution of light and shade and local colours without any single dominant tone is conspicuous in this painting, which is in a remarkable state of preservation and looks as fresh as if it had been painted yesterday. When a canvas of this kind has suffered any damage, our pleasure in it is spoiled without our knowing the reason.'