What are you reading now?

[smittims]

Well, hot diggety dog! And to think GW Bush famously said 'the trouble with the French is they have no word for entreprenooer' (sic)..

[french frank]

I didn't know there were 45 french cheeses, almost as many as Sherlock Holmes' types of cigar ash.

I suspect the list is not exhaustive. De Gaulle put the number somewhat higher, I seem to remember.

“Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays où il existe 258 variétés de fromage?" Also 246.

[Ian Thumwood]

At the risk of appearing fanatical: I have just been lent: Fromages by Dominique Bouchait. It details 45 French cheeses, their individual histories, how they're made, how to cut them, what breads and whether wines are best with them, plus about 40 recipes (including tartiflette).

i love tartiflette and have made this myself although I have bottled out using Reblechon after trying it once and found it stunk out my house despite being in a plastic containing in the fridge. There was an excellent restauarant in Troyes which made this which i liked when I visited there.

Have you ever seen the Jean Dujardin OSS117 films ? They are a pastiche of James Bond but the lead character is really non PC. The films are very funny and absolutely nail the production values of 60s ans 70's Bond. The French have always found Bond funny because of Sean Connery's surname which is a rude way of saying someone is an idiot in French! In one of the OSS17 films, DuJardin's character tries to chat up a glamorous bit of fluff by asking her if she knows there are 2000 types of cheese in France! Worst chat up line ever.

I was tempted by the Elizabeth David book recommended in "A good read" about 2 months ago. That was about French cooking and seemed interesting. Have to say that henever Harriet Gilbert makes a recommendation it is something I would want to avoid! She has a terrible taste in books and think they will never appeal to blokes.

[smittims]

I didn't know there were 45 french cheeses, almost as many as Sherlock Holmes' types of cigar ash.

[french frank]

At the risk of appearing fanatical: I have just been lent: Fromages by Dominique Bouchait. It details 45 French cheeses, their individual histories, how they're made, how to cut them, what breads and whether wines are best with them, plus about 40 recipes (including tartiflette).

[LMcD]

Currently reading 'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry.

[smittims]

Thanks, gurnemanz, for the Russell quote. How like him!

I'm re-reading The Search, C P Snow's first novel. Although he was a little deprecatory on its (slightly shortened) re-publication , and one can detect the influence of H G Wells, it's one of the few novels to convey just how exciting scientific research can be. But I think that's one of Snow's strengths. He can make even a faculty meeting thrilling reading.

[gurnemanz]

Ian, I think you are still confusing 'truth' with accuracy. I don't think it's valid to criticise Geoffrey of Monmouth for a lack of the latter, as that was no more his purpose than Homer's. A work of literature is not meant to be a chronology of facts, but a shaped work of art with a specific purpose. Thsi can be seen by considering modern TV or radio drama, which may appear to be realistic, but in which nothing happens without significance to the plot. Truly realistic drama would contain a myriad of irrelevant and inconsequential details.

People often ask 'Is the Bible true?' meaning 'is it historically accurate?' I say 'yes, it's true because it deals with human truths, but it is not mean to be factual'. Despite this , you will find many books which try to 'prove' that the Gospel narrative is a historical record.

It takes me back to studying German literature 50 years ago. Heinrich von Kleist and his 'Kant crisis' came up. I even read some of Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' (rather short extracts from an impossibly lengthy tome which I havent dipped into since - I think I remember a comment from Bertrand Russell re Kant's unreadability to the effect that philosophers before Kant had one big advantage - they didn't have to read Kant.) Alas for him Kleist did read Kant, with grim effects. To oversimplify: Kleist got the message from Kant that objective truth was unknowable and life therefore meaningless. He ended up shooting himself.

[richardfinegold]

M. Vinteuil

I can only echo the good wishes of everyone else, not least FF. I hope that your sabbatical will allow much reading, listening to expertly 'curated' (why has this word become such a cliché?) music and some fine cheeses, accompanied by appropriate wines like Roquefort and Sauternes - a marriage made in heaven, IMUO.

Keep well

HD

Happy Holidays Vints, and don’t stay away long

[smittims]

Ian, I think you are still confusing 'truth' with accuracy. I don't think it's valid to criticise Geoffrey of Monmouth for a lack of the latter, as that was no more his purpose than Homer's. A work of literature is not meant to be a chronology of facts, but a shaped work of art with a specific purpose. Thsi can be seen by considering modern TV or radio drama, which may appear to be realistic, but in which nothing happens without significance to the plot. Truly realistic drama would contain a myriad of irrelevant and inconsequential details.

People often ask 'Is the Bible true?' meaning 'is it historically accurate?' I say 'yes, it's true because it deals with human truths, but it is not mean to be factual'. Despite this , you will find many books which try to 'prove' that the Gospel narrative is a historical record. More enlightened scholars consider it a theological treatise expressed in vivid and memorable stories.

[HighlandDougie]

... he left all his books to the Bodleian (nineteen thousand volumes), except for two which were expressly donated to the British Museum. These two were books written by one of his successors at the BM, who had written critically of Douce : Douce's revenge is in the detailed sarcastic marginalia throughout these two books.

M. Vinteuil

I can only echo the good wishes of everyone else, not least FF. I hope that your sabbatical will allow much reading, listening to expertly 'curated' (why has this word become such a cliché?) music and some fine cheeses, accompanied by appropriate wines like Roquefort and Sauternes - a marriage made in heaven, IMUO.

Keep well

HD

[eighthobstruction]

.
... currently reading H J Jackson's marvellous Marginalia - Readers Writing in Books , in which I discover the wonderfully choleric Francis Douce [1757-1834], whose list of Complaints on his resignation from the post of Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum is a joy -

1. The Nature of the constitution of the M[useum] altogether objectionable.
2. The coldness, even danger, in the frequenting the great house in winter.
3. The vastness of the business remaining to be done & continually flowing in.
4. The total impossibility of my individual efforts, limited, restrained & controlled as they are, to do any real, or at least much, good.
5. An apparent, & I believe real, system of espionage throughout the place & certainly a want of due respect towards and confidence in the officers.
6. The total absence of all aid in my department.
7. The apartments I reside in are dangerously cold in winter & like an oven in summer. The whole damp, especially the lower room where my books are in great jeopardy & which I never entered, even in summer time, without being sensibly affected with some kind of pain or unpleasant sensation.
8. The general unwholesomeness of the air from sinks, drains, the ill-contrived & filthy water closet; & most of all the large & excessively cold bed chamber with an opening to the back kitchen & all its damp & cellar like smells.
9. The want of society with the members, their habits wholly different & their manners far from fascinating & sometimes repulsive.
10. The want of power to do any good, & the difficulty to make the motley & often trifling committees sensible that they could do any.
11. The general pride & affected consequence of these committees.
12. Their assumption of power, that I think not vested in them.
13. The fiddle faddle requisition of incessant reports, the greatest part of which can inform them of nothing, or, when they do, of what they are generally incapable of understanding or fairly judging of.

I too will be leaving this Forum for a while, but had to share this as a Christmas treat....

.

....and can't get a decent hot/strong cup of tea anywhere....

[Ian Thumwood]

Smittims

To pick up the discussion, Russell's position is that GoM's "History of the British Kings" does incorporate some grains of truth but the compilation of a single narrative from various sources resulted in a hotch-potch which seriously clouds what is credible. It is interesting that he was ridiculed by his contemporaries who doubted the veracity of his writing and more modern historians who have the benefit of more thorough and disciplined research as well as archaeology. Russell teases out some of G o M's resources (such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" where he miscounts the number of incursions into Britannia by adding a confused, third visit.) and implies that there are other sources which are now missing. I think the issue of intent is, as you suggest, important and even more so when you can understand who the original audience was for this book. (In GoM's case this meant the Normans as well as a desire to put the "Celtic" Welsh centre stage and so discredit the "Saxon English.) Unfortunately, Geoffrey's exercise was poorly executed and includes a lot of fantasy. I like the book but , as a piece of historical research, I feel it palls in comparison with other ancient historians as diverse as Suetonius and Gregory of Tours who were more thorough and capable as historians. He is not much better than Gerald of Wales as a chronicler of history and has the disadvantage of not being as amusing either! What is amazing is how the stories from one book have , unconsciously, been burned in to the national identity.

The fact that G of M recounted stories about Iron Age kings through an early medieval lens makes the stories regarding Lear, etc a furtile ground for the likes of Shakespeare to project his own politcal bias regarding late 16th Century . The stories are good enough to remain popular 900 years after they were written. Both writers and their audience seemed to view Roman history as being identical to early medieval periods and it was only until 17th / 18th century that you find people taking a more "serious" approach. When you read about Roman armies in much medieval literature, for example, what is being described is a medieval army - a good example of this is in much of the Arthurian tales that were popular at that time.

Back in the 1990s I spent a lot of time reading medieval literature. For a better "grasp" of that period, I think "Sir Gawain & the Green Knight" takes some beating, albeit it was written long after G o M. This book really strikes me as being "authentic" and, as I think I made the point before, diminishes Victoriana like "Ivanhoe" in my opinion.

As far as the Bible is concerned, I would love to read a book where the NT in particular was framed within a Roman context. Adrian Goldsworthy partly dealt with this in an epilogue to his thorough birography of Augustus but I think that the scope should have been widened. Has anyone ever written about the NT from the presepctive of being a verifiable historical record, I wonder ?

BTW - The new Asterix is pretty good!

[smittims]

I think the best way I can answer Ian's question is by referring to the device of Myth, which I think is often misunderstood today. A Channel 4 documentary might mention a Bible story and ask 'did this really happen or its it just a myth?'. I think the ancient reader would not have asked that question, but rather 'what does this story mean to me today?'

A myth is a powerful cultural tool, conveying truth through vivid and memorable images and stories. This is accepted subconsciously by many people who might not analyse what is happening. I think Homer, Shakespeare and Jane Austen are read and loved by millions not because they believe that Lizzie Bennet's marriage to Mr D'Arcy is historical fact but because the story ilustrates a profound human truth.

With the Bible of course this has been muddied by the rise of Fundamentalism since the mid-19th century, which began as a reaction to the scientific discoveries proving the Biblical record could not be fact. Wiser minds knew all along that there is no mention of fact in the Bible, no claim that it is historically accurate or, more importantly ,that it is important to believe that it is. S. Paul says 'this is a true saying and worthy to be repeated' but he does not insist that it is historical fact.

As for King Lear, I think that has always been thought legend. But to confuse this with the concept of fake , forgery , or nonsense is to miss the truth of the story, as it would be to stop reading Hamlet because we can't prove that he really said 'to be or not to be'. Instead we nod our heads and say 'how true this is.'

[richardfinegold]

Lessons,by Ian McEwan. I had started it a few months ago but then shelved it for some others but now I am really enjoying it. Part of the ploti involves the seduction of an adolescent by his Piano teacher. That would have been a longed for event for a student, but it always seems that such children become emotionally scarred for life. The book takes a bit to hit its stride but it’s become compelling