What are you reading now?

[vinteuil]

... have found again a copy of a book that delighted me as a teenager: "The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse", ed. DB Wyndham Lewis.

I had forgotten the delights of the Wesleyan Hymn Book -

"O May Thy powerful Word
Inspire the feeble Worm
To rush into Thy Kingdom, Lord,
And take it as by Storm."

[Angle]

THIS EFFING LADE, a biogreaohy of Coral Browne. by Rose Collis. Quite a contrast with THE EDWARDIANS by Vita Sackville-West.

[verismissimo]

THIS EFFING LADE, a biogreaohy of Coral Browne. by Rose Collis. Quite a contrast with THE EDWARDIANS by Vita Sackville-West.

What a character she was!

[vinteuil]

... next week's Radio Times : Thursday 1 November. Afternoon drama 'the other Simenon' (ie the ones without Maigret... ). They're doing "Teddy Bear" ("l' Ours en Peluche") . As the RT blurb says : " ... as the threads begin to unravel, it soon becomes clear that a darker psychosis is at work that threatens to destroy everything and everyone Jean holds dear. ... this grim and often twisted tale from one of the 20th century's most prolific writers is a difficult but rewarding listen." *

Inspired by this I hauled down vol 10 of the Simenon to re-read this. Rewarding certainly; I'm not sure about 'difficult'. Once again I marvel at what a complete spell-binding master Simenon is. Much recommended!

* or as a French blurb puts it : « La profondeur psychologique et l'art du récit de Georges Simenon atteignent ici une intensité exceptionnelle. »

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Once again I marvel at what a complete spell-binding master Simenon is. Much recommended!

A great favourite of Stravinsky, too! I haven't read any for years: far too long!

[vinteuil]

A great favourite of Stravinsky, too! I haven't read any for years: far too long!

... as André Gide noted - « Simenon est un romancier de génie et le plus vraiment romancier que nous ayons dans notre littérature d'aujourd'hui ».

[french frank]

... as André Gide noted - « Simenon est un romancier de génie et le plus vraiment romancier que nous ayons dans notre littérature d'aujourd'hui ».

Would that be the same Gide who rejected Du côté de chez Swann or a different one?

Currently reading: Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte.

[vinteuil]

Would that be the same Gide who rejected Du côté de chez Swann .

... ouch! Poor old Gide; he never lived that one down.

Apparently he couldn't cope with this particular description of the narrator's aunt :

"Elle tendait à mes lèvres son triste front pâle et fade sur lequel, à cette heure matinale, elle n' avait pas encore arrangé ses faux cheveux, et où les vertèbres transparaissaient comme les pointes d'une couronne d' épines ou les grains d' un rosaire... "

[Pléiade (1954) vol i p 54; (1987) vol i p 51]

The awkwardness of this reference to the 'vertebrae' of Léonie's forehead or Léonie's wig was enough for Gide to consign the manuscript to the 'reject' pile...

(see also Gide's letter to Proust 10/11 January 1914 [ Kolb vol xiii p 50 ]. )

[french frank]

(see also Gide's letter to Proust 10/11 January 1914 [ Kolb vol xiii p 50 ]. )

Ha! I have some volumes of Phil Kolb's Proust letters which he gave to a friend, the father of a friend of mine, and which found their way to me. But not, I think, the volume(s) that you quote.

May I suggest, however, that Marcel was speaking of his aunt, rather than his grandma?

"Je n'étais pas avec ma tante depuis cinq minutes, qu'elle me renvoyait par peur que je la fatigue. Elle tendait à mes lèvres son triste front pâle et fade ..."

In my edition it appears half way down page 52.

[Ed: Wretch! You have altered your original while I was checking the reference! ]

[vinteuil]

Phil Kolb's Proust letters :]

... in fact I only have the Kolb edn of Proust's letters because of Simenon!

Readers of Simenon may remember that Maigret came from Moulins (see, for example, l' Affaire Saint-Fiacre): in a fit of Simenon enthusiasm I spent a week in and around Moulins (see also, and why not? les Inconnus dans la Maison - rooted in Moulins even without Maigret... ) - after a few days, not a lot to do in Moulins - but a second-hand bookshop was closing down - and the set of twenty one volumes of the Proust Correspondance was on offer for some eighty pounds. How could I not? as I said to Mme V...

[verismissimo]

Leschetizky as I Knew Him by one of his pupils, Ethel Newcomb (1921).

It's an utterly charming, well-written, closely-observed book of a substantially forgotten master-teacher.

His pedagogic descendants must fill the piano-playing world. Wonder if they are aware of that and each other?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the first [but last in my reading] of Henry Porter's excellent spy novels ... very highly rated in Jazzbo circles ...

[vinteuil]

... in Armistice remembrance time, have been re-reading (before presenting as a gift to Mme V, who has been deeply into WWII writings of late... ) Kipling's "The Gardener" (which I see was done as an interval reading on Radio 3 the other evening). If you don't well up by the end of this fifteen-page story - well, I won't have anything to do with you...

[verismissimo]

Kipling's "The Gardener"

Picking up my daughter from school yesterday, I chatted with a Canadian mother whose husband, I discovered works for the War Graves Commission. "Has he read Kipling's The Gardener," I enquired. "I'll ask him," she responded...

[DublinJimbo]

For what is probably the fourth time, I've been immersing myself in the work of Canadian author Roberston Davies, a longtime favourite of mine. The Deptford Trilogy was holiday reading in October, I since moved on to and finished The Cornish Trilogy and now I'm 100 pages into The Cunning Man.

Despite having read it all before, I've still enjoyed this journey immensely. Fifth Business, the first book of The Deptford Trilogy, proved to be ideal holiday reading, since its touch is the lightest in the two trilogies. Davies has one of his characters exhort people to write 'in the plain style', and he (Davies) takes his own advice throughout his books, but most especially in Fifth Business which is chockablock with delightfully witty turns of phrase.

The promotional blurb on one of the book jackets includes the following: "[Robertson Davies is] the kind of writer who makes you want to nag your friends until they read him so that they can share the pleasure". For once, the blurb fits.