For when words don’t even begin. secretly creepy
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
What Tony is reading
I have finally finished Emma, which I thoroughly enjoyed--and I am glad there are more Jane Austen books I haven't read yet.
One of the things about travel is stumbling about things that even with a good deal of Internet trolling you might not have ever stumbled upon. This happened to me a couple of times in London earlier this month--and I include serendipities pertaining to things that I know about and yet wouldn't think to seek out.
When I was growing up in London, I was aware of Billy Bunter even though he was before my time. I think the weekly in which stories about him and his friends appeared had ceased publication before I was born--but perhaps not too long before I was born. I was reminded of Bunter & Co. just before my London trip, when I reread some essays by George Orwell, including one he published in 1940 called "Boys' Weeklies," which he describes as "vilely printed twopenny papers, most of them with lurid cover-illustrations."
However, Orwell approved of the Magnet, the weekly that devoted 20,000 words or so--in each issue--to the adventures of Bob Cherry, Tom Merry, Harry Wharton, Johnny Bull, Billy Bunter, and the rest of them at a boarding school called Greyfriars (which is a lot like Hogwarts Academy, by the way). These stories had been appearing in the Magnet since about 1908--they had already been around a long time when Orwell wrote his essay (let me repeat: 20,000 words a week).
Orwell describes an English surreality: These boys live in a kind of permanent 1910--before The Great War. The slang they use was probably obsolete by 1908, when their adventures started (if it was ever real slang--they speak words that make perfect sense but were probably never a part of the real language of men, saying "dash" instead of "damn," for example). There is a sameness of style that leads Orwell to conclude that the stories had been written--and were still being written--by a succession of writers over the years who were required to stick with the official voice that these tales were told in. (Five years later Orwell found out that the stories were all written by one man: Charles Hamilton, who used the pen name "Frank Richards" and was simultaneously writing other stories under other pen names. Egads!)
As I strolled through a bookstore on King's Road (what books would they have that we don't have in New York anyway?) I came across Billy Bunter's Postal Order. Who knew such a thing existed? Well, now both you and I do. It's an audio book, three disks. And I'm glad I bought it and listened to it. Apparently CSA Word produces several of these episodes from the Magnet.
Orwell points out that the stories are what we would tend to think of as wordy, and he quotes one as follows:
One of the things about travel is stumbling about things that even with a good deal of Internet trolling you might not have ever stumbled upon. This happened to me a couple of times in London earlier this month--and I include serendipities pertaining to things that I know about and yet wouldn't think to seek out.
When I was growing up in London, I was aware of Billy Bunter even though he was before my time. I think the weekly in which stories about him and his friends appeared had ceased publication before I was born--but perhaps not too long before I was born. I was reminded of Bunter & Co. just before my London trip, when I reread some essays by George Orwell, including one he published in 1940 called "Boys' Weeklies," which he describes as "vilely printed twopenny papers, most of them with lurid cover-illustrations."
However, Orwell approved of the Magnet, the weekly that devoted 20,000 words or so--in each issue--to the adventures of Bob Cherry, Tom Merry, Harry Wharton, Johnny Bull, Billy Bunter, and the rest of them at a boarding school called Greyfriars (which is a lot like Hogwarts Academy, by the way). These stories had been appearing in the Magnet since about 1908--they had already been around a long time when Orwell wrote his essay (let me repeat: 20,000 words a week).
Orwell describes an English surreality: These boys live in a kind of permanent 1910--before The Great War. The slang they use was probably obsolete by 1908, when their adventures started (if it was ever real slang--they speak words that make perfect sense but were probably never a part of the real language of men, saying "dash" instead of "damn," for example). There is a sameness of style that leads Orwell to conclude that the stories had been written--and were still being written--by a succession of writers over the years who were required to stick with the official voice that these tales were told in. (Five years later Orwell found out that the stories were all written by one man: Charles Hamilton, who used the pen name "Frank Richards" and was simultaneously writing other stories under other pen names. Egads!)
As I strolled through a bookstore on King's Road (what books would they have that we don't have in New York anyway?) I came across Billy Bunter's Postal Order. Who knew such a thing existed? Well, now both you and I do. It's an audio book, three disks. And I'm glad I bought it and listened to it. Apparently CSA Word produces several of these episodes from the Magnet.
Orwell points out that the stories are what we would tend to think of as wordy, and he quotes one as follows:
'Shutup, Bunter!'
Groan!
Shutting up was not really in Billy Bunter's line. He seldom shut up, though often requested to do so. On the present awful occasion the fat Owl of Greyfriars was less inclined than ever to shut up. And he did not shut up! He groaned, and groaned, and went on groaning.
Even groaning did not fully express Bunter's feelings. His feelings, in fact, were inexpressible.
There were six of them in the soup! Only one of the six uttered sounds of woe and lamentation. But that one, William George Bunter, uttered enough for the whole party and a little over.
But you know what: It works. Although an editor today (O.K., me) would be greatly tempted to condense a passage such as the foregoing, when I listened to the audio book this writer's voice had a hypnotic quality that I found drew me deeper and deeper into the ridiculous world of Billy Bunter and Greyfriars, a world that is probably more English than the English themselves have ever lived in.
Now, if I may climb from the ridiculous back up to the sublime, I am now reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937, by Zora Neale Hurston, a writer who is not much remembered these days. I have only got through the first 30 pages or so, but I am completely captivated by her magical phrases--I was not overly surprised to learn that she produced a literary magazine with Langston Hughes at the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance.
Friday, October 19, 2007
. . . I used to go to bed early
I have heard it said that Proust's use of French is very beautiful. I consider it unfortunate that even if I immersed myself in French for the rest of my life, I still would not know for sure, for myself, whether that is true. But if I wanted to get immersed in French for a long time, I suppose I could buy this:
Yes, the whole A la recherche du temps perdu as an audio book, complete, on 111 CDs (139 hours). Normally it's 360.00 €, but this weekend only it's on sale for 299.90 €--while supplies last. I don’t know French well enough to jump at that kind of bargain. In the meantime I will continue to regret that there is no English-language complete audio book of In Search of Lost Time.
Yes, the whole A la recherche du temps perdu as an audio book, complete, on 111 CDs (139 hours). Normally it's 360.00 €, but this weekend only it's on sale for 299.90 €--while supplies last. I don’t know French well enough to jump at that kind of bargain. In the meantime I will continue to regret that there is no English-language complete audio book of In Search of Lost Time.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The G-word
Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the U.S. "for consultations." Whatever. Hey, Nabi Sensoy, if you move fast enough, the door won’t hit your ass on the way out. I am not sorry that the truth could prove to be "very injurious . . . to the psyche of the Turkish people."
You can tell I will never be a diplomat.
And nor will Egemen Bagis, a foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said in Washington, "Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball. . . . I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball." Bagis went on to warn that if the full House passes its nonbinding resolution (declaring the Armenian genocide genocide), "We will do something and I can promise you it won't be pleasant." Oh, come on, Egemen, holocaust denial is soooo 20th century. And you really are protesting too much.
A man on the street, apparently of Turkish origin, told a radio reporter that politicians should stay out of the genocide question and leave it up to historians. Oh, really? Thank you for that insight, Man On The Street. You mean historians in Turkey? A country that convicts citizens of Turkey who write about the topic in a way their government does not agree with?
Our president isn’t much better than that Man On The Street. In his comments yesterday, President Bush was able to describe "the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915" as "historic mass killings." Hmmm, if only there was a convenient one-word term for historic mass killings of members of a specific population. Oh, well. If politicians can't come up with a word, I'm sure some writer or historian will.
You can tell I will never be a diplomat.
And nor will Egemen Bagis, a foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said in Washington, "Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball. . . . I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball." Bagis went on to warn that if the full House passes its nonbinding resolution (declaring the Armenian genocide genocide), "We will do something and I can promise you it won't be pleasant." Oh, come on, Egemen, holocaust denial is soooo 20th century. And you really are protesting too much.
A man on the street, apparently of Turkish origin, told a radio reporter that politicians should stay out of the genocide question and leave it up to historians. Oh, really? Thank you for that insight, Man On The Street. You mean historians in Turkey? A country that convicts citizens of Turkey who write about the topic in a way their government does not agree with?
Our president isn’t much better than that Man On The Street. In his comments yesterday, President Bush was able to describe "the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915" as "historic mass killings." Hmmm, if only there was a convenient one-word term for historic mass killings of members of a specific population. Oh, well. If politicians can't come up with a word, I'm sure some writer or historian will.
In your dreams
I snoozed after my clock radio went off this morning, and I could swear the man was announcing that Helen Mirren had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. "That's out of left field," I thought. He went onto explain that her key work was The Golden Notebook. "He's way off," I thought. I looked over at my clock: 5:33. I was awake now. I have no idea whether the guy really said Helen Mirren was the winner or my sleep just jumbled up what he did say. Anyway, I would definitly cast Helen Mirren if they make a biopic of Doris Lessing.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Rhinovirus
I just got back from London last night and I am fighting off a cold. I catch colds when two conditions are present: (1) exposure to the virus and (2) stress.
One thing in London that was not stress is the new production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros that has opened at the Royal Court Theatre, in Sloane Square. This is the theatre where the first English-language production opened in 1960, with Sir Lawrence Olivier (who was thought of as slumming at the time but was reinventing himself and revivifying the Royal Court Theatre) and directed by Orson Welles.
It turns out that Monday night is the cheap night at the Royal Court (£10 all seats), which happened to be a perfect night for me and my parents to go. The costumes are of the era (i.e. 1950s France). The new translation is strong, using a present-day flavor of English without violating the 1950s look of the characters and set. One of the funniest lines is a throwaway (as is so often the case in theatre). The characters are working in a first-floor office and a rhinoceros charges into the ground floor, destroying everything, including the stairs up to the first floor. The characters look over the railing into the destruction below:
One thing in London that was not stress is the new production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros that has opened at the Royal Court Theatre, in Sloane Square. This is the theatre where the first English-language production opened in 1960, with Sir Lawrence Olivier (who was thought of as slumming at the time but was reinventing himself and revivifying the Royal Court Theatre) and directed by Orson Welles.
It turns out that Monday night is the cheap night at the Royal Court (£10 all seats), which happened to be a perfect night for me and my parents to go. The costumes are of the era (i.e. 1950s France). The new translation is strong, using a present-day flavor of English without violating the 1950s look of the characters and set. One of the funniest lines is a throwaway (as is so often the case in theatre). The characters are working in a first-floor office and a rhinoceros charges into the ground floor, destroying everything, including the stairs up to the first floor. The characters look over the railing into the destruction below:
To which one of them remarks "This was bound to happen eventually."
!
Maybe you had to be there--and I hope you get to be.
The cold I have now I caught from my father. The stress came from staying up late and waking up early. (My parents don’t stress me anymore--but I can’t explain all that in one blog post.) The next day we went to Kew Gardens. In the cab my father let four HUGE sneezes or, as the Wikipedia calls it, "aerosols of respiratory droplets." There in the sealed London cab careening through those twisted curvy streets I knew it was all over. The next night we saw the Woman in Black and the next day I came back to New York. American Airlines had put me on a later flight, and I felt the cold get me for sure over the Atlantic. The air on the plane was too dry and with screaming babies and people talking, I couldn’t sleep. I looked at my watch: People chattering away at 4:15 a.m. London time. Because of all the security at Heathrow, I’d had to check my bag, meaning it took 40 minutes to reclaim it at JFK. I took the train back to The Bronx, but by then nighttime construction was in full swing and it took 3 hours to get home (instead of the 1 hour it had taken me to get to airport the week before).
I got to bed by 3 a.m. and got up early to fetch Jenny from boarding before I went to work. I dragged into work a bit late and my sinuses majorly stuffed.
YouTube doesn't have a clip of Rhinoceros on YouTube, but it does have a clip of one of the costumes:
(This is what rhinoceroses looked like in France in the 1950s.)
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