Recently The Leo Strauss Center began providing audio recordings of many of his lectures. I saw a listing for Thucydides and decided to listen to them during my commute. This course was offered during the 1972-73 academic year at St. John’s College in Annapolis. Strauss died later in 1973 but it’s clear to hear his […]
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Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabil Translation by Michael Henry Heim Harcourt Brace & CompanyI have enjoyed the works of Bohumil Hrabal to date and that streak continues with Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. An 117-page sentence from an old shoemaker/brewmaster to some young ladies (he directly addresses them […]
For more foreign movies, check out Caroline’s World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard’s monthly Foreign Film Festival round-up. The IMDb.com page for this movie can be found here. I usually enjoy the Sunday night movies on TCM—they’re one of the few things I record. This one was on a few weeks ago and I finally […]
To commemorate HBO’s documentary Namath, I present my 4th grade class picture with me wearing his jersey. What the picture doesn’t reflect is that I was barefoot—the info board covers that detail. I refused to wear shoes to school until 5th grade (and I was lied to in order to get me to wear shoes […]
The Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Translation by Joanne Turnbull with Nikolai Formozov Introduction by Caryl Emerson NYRB ClassicsI’m at a loss. I liked this book. Or rather I liked the concept of this book and most of what I read. But I’m having trouble thinking of anything, or at least anything original, to […]
Links: The IMDb.com page for Szindbád My notes on The Adventures of Sindbad by Gyula Krúdy, the source for the movie (and recommended if you’re unfamiliar with Krúdy’s work). How do you adapt Krúdy’s surreal, atmospheric work to the screen? The easy answer is very carefully. The more involved answer would be something like director […]
Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters Translated and Edited by Michael Hofmann W. W. Norton & Company, Hardcover, 512 pages ISBN-10: 0393060640 / ISBN-13: 978-0393060645 Albert Einstein to B. W. Huebsch (24 February 1935) Esteemed Mr. Hübsch, I am truly grateful to you for sending me this consoling book [Job] by a real mensch and […]
From Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hofmann. The last few years of Roth’s life saw many of the same themes as already posted, and some extended thoughts on these subjects: • A lot of talk of politics and how many, especially “those who embodied the ‘word’s conscience’ were themselves […]
From Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hofmann. Once again I provide too many excerpts, but I’m finding Roth a fascinating figure. The uprising by the Social Democrats in Austria (12 February 1934) and the resulting Dollfuss dictatorship discourages Roth in a manner more than he had been in previous […]
From Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hofmann. I’m including too many excerpts from this year but it seems to mark a clear change in Roth, or perhaps an acceleration in his downward spiral tied to his despair. He was perceptive on the dangers Nazism posed for Germany and Europe. […]
From Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hofmann. The letters from this period covers much of the same material as in the previous post. During this period he wrote The Radetzky March, although how he did so in his circumstance is amazing—taking care of his sick wife, scrambling for money, […]
From Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hofmann. Michael Hoffman makes the observation that Roth “in those days was like an open knife, a mixture of prophet, revolutionary, and sociopath”. The bluntness he exhibits with his friends shows an honesty that often wanders into just being a jerk. Major topics […]
I finally had some time to start Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, translated and edited by Michael Hofmann. The young Roth sounds so…so…young, something that doesn’t come through in any of his work I’ve read so far. I’ll quote from some of his letters as they strike me, even if they are as inconsequential […]
I know what I’ll be leafing through at work today. I’m sure I’ll be posting some excerpts over the next week. If you’re interested in Roth, be sure to check out the book excerpt at The New Yorker, which includes ten letters from the book. Paul Raymont at Philosophy, lit, etc. has more links at […]
Biography of Gyula Krúdy I discovered Trevor at The Mookse and the Gripes has reviewed this and another NYRB Classic I started, so I’ll be sure and link his posts. While there will be some overlap in our reviews I’ll try to focus on additional topics in Krúdy’s work. Translator George Szirtes provides a helpful […]
Ramon Casas “La Madeleine” (1892) I seem to have misplaced a week of my life…probably the combination of a brutal head cold and long stressful work days. In trying to get caught up on what others have posted I found The Neglected Books Page‘s comments on Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós, calling it […]
Picture source A King At Night at biblioklept.org has done a terrific job piecing together the story within Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Or maybe one of the stories within the movie. It’s funny to read the post and realize how slight a storyline can end up as such a powerful film. I also […]
From the back cover of the New Directions edition: First published in 1971 as a typewritten edition, then finally printed in book form in 1989, I served the King of England is a comic novel telling the tale of Ditie, a hugely ambitious but simple waiter in a deluxe Prague hotel in the years before […]
A Christmas Eve entry in the series of excerpts from Bohumil Hrabal’s fantastic tale, where the unbelievable routinely comes true. At times the plot feels like a rickety framework on which to hang anecdotes such as the following…not that I’m complaining. While in the prison for millionaires (more on this in the next post), Ditie […]