Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936) To what extent the civilizations whose remains have been discovered in North-West India influenced and were influenced by the civilizations of Mesopotamia and, thereby, influenced those of the Western World, we cannot as yet determine. Such influence there certainly was, […]
I’ve commented on the miniseries several times already, but I did want to mention that it will premier on HBO on February 26. Despite some issues with the series, I was impressed with how well they adapted a difficult book to the screen. Definitely recommended. Here are some random thoughts I had while watching it. […]
For anyone that has read Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss, be sure to read Helen Rittelmeyer’s post The Redemption of Nathan Leopold, Maybe. While the circumstances have important differences, there are some eerie similarities. In all its externals, Leopold’s life followed the arc of a basic redemption story. He felt remorse for […]
Publicity card from The Collected Works’ production of Princess IvonaSaturday night my wife and I attended The Collected Works’ production of Witold Gombrowicz’s Princess Ivona at the Performance Art Institue in San Francisco. I provide a cursory overview of the play in this post. As a director, I know a good play through working with […]
A Novel Without Lies by Anatoly Mariengof, translation by Jose Alaniz (Glas Volume 23: 2000) The friendship between Anatoly Mariengof and poet Sergei Esenin started when they met during the summer of 1918 and lasted until Esenin’s suicide in 1925. These tumultuous times and their extraordinary events provide a backdrop for the “unvarnished portrait” Mariengof […]
Patience: After Sebald is available for instant viewing on Netflix. Grant Gee’s documentary brings to life Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn with readings from the book and images of the places mentioned. I wouldn’t call it an adaptation of the book…more like an homage and supplement. The movie tends to polarize reviewers, either loving or […]
It’s Friday so I’m continuing with a chapter from Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936). In studying any long period of history, one frequently realizes that great ‘discoveries’ which have profoundly influenced civilization are, after all, only rediscoveries—though the later discoverers showed every whit as much […]
I am supposed to attend a performance of Princess Ivona (the English title) by Witold Gombrowicz this weekend and I wanted to write about the play in advance. For the record, there will be lots of spoilers in this post. Gombrowicz wrote Ivona, Princess of Burgundia from 1933 to 1935 and it was first published […]
Rustic Baroque by Jiří Hájíček, translation from the Czech by Gale A. Kirking (Brno: Real World Press, 2012) As I mentioned in the post on Rustic Baroque there were also four stories from Hájíček’s collection The Wooden Knife included in the book. Memories of a Village Dance in 1986 The Wooden Knife Horses are Supposed […]
Posting will resume soon…I’ve been assisting my wife lately with her website. For anyone with kids check out her site “kids + love + acupuncture: tips from A – Z to keep your kids healthy” and follow her on pinterest. Thanks to the last article I know more about kids’ constipation than I ever wanted […]
10th century CE Greek copy of Aristachus Samos’s 2nd century BCE calculations of the relative sizes of the Sun, Moon and the Earth Picutre source Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936) So stupendous is the work of the Greeks in art, literature, and philosophy that there […]
Marginalia on Casanova by Miklós Szentkuthy St. Orpheus Breviary, Vol. 1 Translation by Tim Wilkinson Introduction by Zéno Bianu (Translation by Rainer J. Hanshe) Afterword by Mária Tompa (New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2012) ISBN 9780983697244This is one of the strangest and most enjoyable books I’ve read in quite a while. I have hesitated to […]
The Shadow Benito Pérez Galdós Translated by Karen O. Austin (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1980) My inadvertent “Galdós in English translation” project continues with his first novel… The Shadow (La sombra) was written by Galdós in 1866 or 1867 but wasn’t published until 1870 in serial form. It was his first novel and, although […]
Codex Heidelbergensis 398 The single surviving manuscript of Hanno’s Periplus Locate din the Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg Picture sourceOff the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936) For the most part the student must lament that ‘the iniquity of oblivion’ has overtaken work of the utmost value, but sometimes a precious […]
A few links I wanted to pass on… An interview with Margaret Jull Costa at The White Review What is one to make of ‘a solidão de esparguete da girafa’ on page one? Should I have translated that as ‘the spaghetti solitude of the giraffe’ rather than ‘the lofty, long-drawn-out solitude of the giraffe’, which […]
Rustic Baroque by Jiří Hájíček Translation from the Czech by Gale A. Kirking (Brno: Real World Press, 2012)Links: Opening the wounds of collectivization: Rustic Baroque in English Czech literature portal’s new book notice A pdf of the first few pages in the book (There are more links at Real World Press but not all the […]
Off the Beaten Track in the Classics by Carl Kaeppel (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936) Kaeppel begins his book with an essay on “Gais Iulius Solinus, a Teller of Wonder-Tales”. Solinus’ work, the Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium (Gallery of Wonderful Things), was written somewhere between 230 and 280 A.D. by Kaeppel’s reckoning. Different editions of it […]
When I read the review of this book in David Meadow’s post at rogueclassicism I thought it would be a great way to get my boys interested in a version of The Iliad. Unfortunately neither of them was inclined to pick up the book on their own but they have responded well to my reading […]
I’ve read a few books by Ryszard Kapuściński and thoroughly enjoyed them. He was a marvelous raconteur. The one book of his I posted about was Travels with Herodotus, a half-memoir and half-reflection on Herodotus’ The Histories. Reading it just after re-reading The Histories was perfect timing, amplifying my pleasure of it. The liberties Kapuściński […]
Tristana: Buñuel’s Film and Galdós’ Novel: A Case Study in the Relation Between Literature and Film by Colin Partridge (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995) OK, finally wrapping up Tristana… Colin Partridge has provided a valuable service for anyone interested in an English translation of Galdós’ novel. Tristana is a wonderful book full of […]